Pod-bearing Cercis

Family Fabaceae. It originates from the most northern locations among all members of the genus, frost- and drought-resistant. Its natural range extends from New York south to North Florida, west to Iowa, Texas and northern Mexico.

Grows as a tree (sometimes a shrub), up to 10 m tall, with a spreading, open crown and a thick uneven trunk, covered in old trees with black, fissured bark. Leaves are semicircular, entire or slightly notched at the tip, up to 8 cm long, leathery, dark green, matte above, glaucous beneath, turning pale yellow in autumn. In spring, during flowering, when all the branches are completely covered with clusters of purple-pink flowers that seem to emerge from the bark, the trees are magically beautiful. Flowers up to 2.5 cm in diameter, without scent, appear on the trunk and branches in clusters before the leaves unfold and fall off after about a month. The fruits are flat, brown pods, up to 10 cm long, very decorative when the fruits ripen.

Develops relatively slowly, light- and heat-loving, relatively undemanding to soil. Transplants poorly. In Odessa and the Nikitsky Botanical Garden there is an elegant white-flowering form (С. s. f. albida С. К. Schneid.).

Seeds must be scarified or treated with concentrated H2SO4 for 30 minutes, or soaked at 35 - 40 °C, and then stratified at 3 - 4° for 2 months. Treatment with gibberellic acid stimulates germination. In addition, dormancy of the seeds can be broken by treatment with a potassium solution (20 - 200 mg/l), which promotes the breakdown of pectic substances of the coverings, as in natural germination. Potassium treatment (20 - 200 mg/l) is recommended for seeds that lack the integument around the cotyledons or are completely without it.

Distributed along the Black Sea coast, where it grows as a tree, farther north it has a shrubby form. Recommended for group and solitary plantings. Especially effective in combination with common broom, which flowers almost simultaneously in racemes of golden flowers. In cultivation since 1813.