New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americana)

New Jersey tea is a compact, mounded shrub reaching 2 to 3 feet tall and 3-5 feet wide that becomes a cloud of fragrant, frothy white flower clusters in early summer. This deep rooted survivor thrives in full sun to part shade and is a master of dry, rocky, or sandy soils, using its massive, nitrogen fixing root system to flourish where other plants fail. Historically, its leaves were dried and used as a popular caffeine free substitute for black tea during the american revolution, while Indigenous tribes utilized the potent, red roots as a primary treatment for respiratory ailments and skin infections. In the garden, it functions as an elite, drought tolerant anchor for the front of a prairie or pollinator border, even front of the porch, providing a high value nectar source for various hairstreak butterflies and specialized native bees, its also the host for the rare mottled dusky wing butterfly!