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United States / Grow / American cranberrybush

American cranberrybush (Viburnum trilobum)
Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

American cranberrybush

Viburnum trilobum · Viburnaceae · all Viburnum records · also called Compact American cranberrybush 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.

American cranberrybush is rated fire resistant, but its low-flammability ratings come with limits on heat and drought tolerance.

Ohio State lists Viburnum trilobum as cranberrybush viburnum and assigns it low flammability. Beside that rating, it says the shrub is not tolerant of heat or drought. Virginia's table repeats the low rating and the same growing-condition limitation for the scientific name.

That combination matters when choosing a shrub for a dry, exposed garden. Low flammability is one consideration; the ability to keep the plant healthy in that location is another. Ohio's general advice links fire resistance to maintenance, including clearing dead material from plants and planning their spacing before purchase.

FireSmart BC also favors cranberry bush, while calling for more research on it. Michigan State recommends Viburnum trilobum for wildfire-resistant landscapes in Michigan's climate. The regional agreement supports a favorable choice, with the research qualification preserved and the heat-and-drought limitation guiding where it belongs.

Form
shrub
Mature height
~4.5 ft
Water need
high
Rated in
Alaska; British Columbia; Michigan / Great Lakes; OR/WA/ID +3
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Alaska; British Columbia; Michigan / Great Lakes; OR/WA/ID; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; western WA
Typed publication scope: 6 scopes across 6 cited fire sources
  • Protect Your Home from Wildfire — Fire Resistant Vegetation and Landscaping · Official scoped edition
    • AK; partial normalized coverage · 2005-04-27

      Alaska Division of Forestry opens with the wildfire threat to Alaskans and publishes Alaska firewise-landscape examples. FireApproved publishes 58 exact source owners from its 60 taxon entries and holds the taxon-free fern label. State publication scope does not establish suitability for every Alaska climate, site, or home-ignition-zone placement.

  • Firewise Plants for the Puget Sound Basin · Official scoped edition
    • Puget Sound Basin (WA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-01-01

      King County's current wildfire page links this list for the Puget Sound Basin. FireApproved publishes 82 exact source owners as basin context, not statewide Washington guidance or a site-specific recommendation.

  • 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.

  • Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
    • OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01

      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.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW 590) · Official scoped edition
    • ID, OR, WA; partial normalized coverage · 2023-10-01

      The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.

  • 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 CT, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, ME, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in CT, IA, ID, IL, IN, MA, ME, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SD, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
3 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.

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

25

exact source areas

Current introduced

1

exact source area

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

25 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Montana (MT)
  • North Dakota (ND)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • South Dakota (SD)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)
  • Wyoming (WY)
1 introduced source area · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Kentucky (KY)

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 (7)

Corroboration (2 rows from 2 sources)
Same genus in the directory · the Viburnum group page

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

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Viburnum trilobum (Compact American cranberrybush viburnum). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/viburnum-trilobum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.