Audubon® Native Sweetshrub

One day in mid-Spring, you’ll catch a whiff of that delightfully different, delicious scent and know it’s Sweetshrub season! This beloved American Accent makes its presence known each spring when it opens it unusual, fragrant, dark reddish-brown flowers. The scent is hard to describe and can vary from plant to plant. Sometimes it smells faintly fruity, other times it evokes ripe bananas and cantaloupe, applesauce, or pineapple upside-down cake. In any event, it’s a fine addition to your native plant garden! Sweetshrub’s dense, leafy stems provide good cover for songbirds and other small animals.

Sweetshrub is not on most people’s radar, but it is adored by native plant enthusiasts as well as by anyone who had one in their yard growing up. Some of our fondest memories are linked to pleasant scents! Like all old-fashioned, well-loved plants, it goes by several pet names, including Strawberry Shrub, Carolina Allspice, and Sweet Betty. Thomas Jefferson planted it at Monticello, and he called it by another nickname, “Bubby Flower.” Bubby Flower is native to woodland areas primarily in the Southeast, with the greatest concentrations in Alabama, Tennessee, North Georgia, and the Carolinas.

Botanically speaking, Sweetshrub is a rather primitive plant, related to Magnolias. These early versions of flowering plants evolved to be pollinated by beetles, not bees. Beetle pollination is less effective than bee pollination, but when successful, Sweetshrub will produce a smattering of odd, sac-shaped receptacles containing large, coffee-brown seeds.