''Dirca palustris'', or eastern leatherwood, is a shrub that grows to a maximum height of about three meters. It is native to the eastern half of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

but abundant only locally. It is most likely to be encountered in the northern part of its range, and is a dominant shrub in some hardwood forests of the upper Great Lakes Region. Rich woods, swampy in some cases, provide its main habitat, and it is occasionally cultivated. The species name, "palustris", means "of the swamps," although it also occurs in well-drained areas provided that the soils are moisture-retentive. It is often hard to recognize because the flowers, which come out just before leafing, last a very short time and ''D. palustris'' may be mixed in with the much more frequent Spicebush, which also has small yellow flowers that appear before the leaves and do so at just about the same time in the early spring. Its closest relative, the

western leatherwood ''Dirca occidentalis'', the western leatherwood, is a deciduous shrub with leaves three to seven centimeters in length. Yellow flowers emerge prior to leafing. It grows on moist and shaded slopes. It is rare and endemic to the San Francisco B ...

, lives across the continent in the San Francisco Bay Area.Archibald William Smith Dirca palustris rt2

References

/https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/d881d9de-ebb5-4f3f-97be-666d9f187765/content Bryan James Peterson (2013). Phytogeography of eastern leatherwood (Dirca palustris L.) resolved by chloroplast sequencing and micro satellite genotyping

External links

Thymelaeoideae Flora of the Eastern United States Flora of Canada Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Thymelaeaceae-stub