United States / Grow / Rhododendron obtusum

Rhododendron obtusum (Rhododendron obtusum)
Photo: (c) harum.koh, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (CC BY-SA), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Rhododendron obtusum

Rhododendron obtusum · Ericaceae · all Rhododendron records · also called Kurume azalea

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Form
shrub
Rated in
Michigan / Great Lakes; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic
Uses
specimen, foundation, screen
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Evidence regions
Michigan / Great Lakes; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Wildfire-resistant Landscape Plants for Michigan (Extension Bulletin E2948) · Official scoped edition
    • MI; partial normalized coverage · 2007-01-01

      Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.

  • Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
    • VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15

      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.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in VA.
USDA hardiness
Documented range 6–7.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

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.

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.

Recommends (1)

Avoids (1)

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Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata ·

Rhododendron obtusum (Kurume azalea). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/rhododendron-obtusum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.