Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
European cranberrybush is rated favorably by three U.S.
sources, but Tasmania rates it highly flammable.
The eastern U.S. plant selector gives it Firewise 1, the most favorable point on its four-level scale. The L grade assigned by Ohio State’s extension service puts European cranberrybush among recommended plants on its five-point flammability scale. Virginia Cooperative Extension also assigns L, meaning less forest-fire-prone on its three-point scale.
The Tasmania Fire Service reaches the opposite conclusion. Its High Flammability rating means European cranberrybush should not be planted or kept within a Building Protection Zone and should be avoided within a Fuel Modified Zone. This is a direct conflict, not a small difference between neighboring grades. The sources use different scales and address different regions, but they do not establish that those differences account for the disagreement.
European cranberrybush is a roughly 15-foot tree in the Viburnaceae family, suited to part sun and moderate water. It is hardy to USDA zone 5a and has been introduced in 19 states. The U.S. assessments support treating it as a favorable choice in their settings, while Tasmania’s guidance treats it as a serious fire concern. It therefore cannot be described as universally fire resistant; its rating depends on which regional fire-landscaping authority applies.
Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
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 CT, DC, DE, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, PA, RI, SD, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Introduced / established
19 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.
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.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
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 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Viburnum opulus · 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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 43002, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
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] (with its recommendation)
Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rur…: remove from the Building Protection Zone; avoid in the Fuel Modified Zone [Texas Building Protection Zone] (with its avoid rating)
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.
