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India-hawthorn is highly flammable and does not belong near structures because the strongest finding supports avoidance.
Across six assessments, the sources disagree. Virginia Cooperative Extension gives this three-foot Rosaceae shrub an H on its three-point flammability scale, which maps to avoidance. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension places Indian hawthorn among fire-resistant plants, a category it says tends to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained. The ACT Government also marks Raphiolepis indica fire retardant.
The Cosmic White cultivar, specifically, appears in Ozbreed’s List 2. That category rests on repeated fire-retardant listings for the genus and species. That compiled judgment is not the same kind of finding as Virginia’s expert rating. The sources also address different regions and use different standards, but those differences do not establish why their conclusions diverge.
The remaining assessments reinforce caution without calling the shrub highly flammable. The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs rate it “At Risk,” or 3 on a four-point scale. The Sun City Texas Firewise Group assigns a medium flammability hazard rating. Its scale concerns sustained burning at high temperatures and how readily that can occur. Favorable listings therefore do not erase the direct H rating or the two cautionary findings. For a homeowner choosing what belongs near a building, the resulting classification is highly flammable, so India-hawthorn belongs away from structures.
Sun City Texas, Georgetown (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-01-14
The guide is authored for the Sun City Texas community in Georgetown. FireApproved publishes 142 exact owners only as community-level context. It is an archived HOA exhibit with unknown rating lineage, not a current statewide Texas source or an independent Tier 1 determination.
Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.
Yavapai County (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2025-03-14
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension authors Bulletin 34 for Yavapai County. FireApproved publishes 198 exact source owners from its resistant and prone tables and keeps the county boundary visible. County publication scope is regional Arizona context, never statewide scope.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source prints 8 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Raphiolepis indica · exact match.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Firewise Plant Guide: Shrubs [Sun City plant-table sections] (mid-scale rating)
Canberra Plant Selector: filtered result page 9 [canberra-selector] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
Listed as Indian Hawthorn — Rhaphiolepis indica. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.
The table rates Indian Hawthorne — Rhaphiolepis indica medium for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
