United States / Grow / rusty blackhaw

rusty blackhaw (Viburnum rufidulum)
Photo: (c) Sophia K, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

rusty blackhaw

Viburnum rufidulum · Viburnaceae · all Viburnum records · also called Rusty blackhaw viburnum · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Form
shrub
Mature height
~12 ft
Rated in
Austin, Texas; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US +1
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Austin, Texas; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US; eastern US
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) · Official scoped edition
    • NC; complete normalized coverage · 2025-03-26

      The complete three-table AG-874 plant list is explicitly for North Carolina and contains 202 low-, medium-, or high-flammability rows. FireApproved accounts for all source rows under its strict taxonomy and lineage rules; source scope does not establish local suitability at a particular North Carolina site.

  • Firewise Landscaping (Travis County) · Official scoped edition
    • Travis County, Austin area (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2024-01-16

      Texas A&M AgriLife Extension publishes this page through its Travis County horticulture program. FireApproved publishes 56 exact owners and retains the source's zone and warning conditions. This is county/Austin regional context, not a second statewide Texas table or site clearance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, NC, NJ, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, AR, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, NC, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

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.

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.

Current native

18

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

18 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Louisiana (LA)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Mississippi (MS)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • South Carolina (SC)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Virginia (VA)

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.

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.

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 (3)

Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)

Avoids (1)

Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)
  • Firewise Landscaping (Travis County) — Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Travis County · page modified 2024-01-16 · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unknown

    “Plants to Avoid for Zone 1 (within 30′ of Structure)”

    Listed as Viburnum-Rusty Blackhaw — Viburnum rufidulum. The page says Zone 1 entries should be restricted to zones 2 or 3; all-zone entries are highly flammable due to volatile oils or growth habit.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

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

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Viburnum rufidulum (Rusty blackhaw viburnum). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/viburnum-rufidulum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.