PlantFiles: Japanese Clerodendrum, Peanut Butter Shrub, Harlequin Glory Bower
Clerodendrum trichotomum

I love this plant and it's amazing and unique smell. It grows perfectly in my climate and is very tall and has not spread too much or reproduced or sent out shoots.
I just don't know when to prune them or how severely a prune they can handle. Also, they haven't flowered despite how healthy they are. Help please :)

I saw this tree in Bristol RI. and wanted to find out about it. This site helped me understand about this tree.Thank you.

Quote from Davesgarden "Latin Word of the Week"
19 Sept 12012
The name Clerodendrum is an oddity in the Botanical world. It is derived from the Greek kleros (chance) and dendron (tree) and logic would dictate it should be written as Clerodendron to follow the standard rules of botanical nomenclature. Some sources spell it as such, but the accepted is Clerodendrum.

The genus contains about 400 species, most of them native to Asia and Africa. They are generally tender perrenials, and only a handful of them are widely cultivated.

I found a mature plant growing in Stanley Park, here in Vancouver BC. It is a glory right now - end of August. A tree-sized shrub (branches from the base) of about 15' ht x w., it is gorgeously fragrant - sweet - with a beautiful jasmine-like flowers on interesting red calix bases. I am going to check it out in the fall to see what the leaf does during fall. For those interested, Vancouver BC is USDA hardiness zone 8.
I am in love, and want one of these for my own!

INVASIVE !!!

This plant will come up EVERYWHERE (thanks to birds, squirrels, the wind, you name it) and it's impossible to get rid of.

Giving this plant a try, I think with its invasive tendency I am going to try and use a cememt underground barrier about 4 feet deep. It may be like bamboo and go under or over but I think this is a neat plant.

My mother had this plant while she was living in Wilsonville, Oregon. Once she gave me a sapling, i have had it in a pot for the past 7 years or more. After seeing this on here, I am eager to plant it. I would love to see it grow into a tree, mine is about 3-4 feet tall. Every fall it looses it's leaves and every spring it comes back.

I am afraid that all its beauty is not enough to win me over completely; it suckers like mad, it comes up 3nmeters away from the tree. I have mine multi branched, that's how I bought it.
I might try to trim it up and shape it like a tree.

When we moved into our house our neighbors had one of these planted near the fence. That one tree has now become three without any help, and several have tried to move into our yard. It is fast-growing and somewhat invasive, but it is one of my favorite trees. It flowers late in summer, around August, and produces the most heavenly smell imaginable. The dark blue berries last all through winter if the birds don't eat them--the robins love them.

This tree is between 15ft - 20ft high in a corner of my backyard in Hamilton, New Zealand (central North Island of New Zealand). It has prefuse highly perfumed blossoms from December (our summer) to about the end of February into March. The butterflies love it!

I really love this tree, but very, very invasive in Virginia Beach, VA. Planted 2 about 2' in height and 4 years later I have 6 at about 12' to 18' and countless sprouts in my yard I must pull up through out the year. Non stop Butterfly interaction. BUT I must get to the sprouts quickly, they grow very fast and in any place---like the rose of sharon.... I am experimenting with shaping, and I am amazed at the different ways I can make them look!!!

Hard work keeping after them. If I let them go they would take over my yard and make it a forest in no time!!

The is a gorgeous tree that grows as if in a race here in Texas. I have had the tree for only a little over 3 years and it has grown to about 12 feet. The blooms smell like jasmine. My tree, however, has never had the fruit that you always hear about it. That doesn't stop the tree from apparently sending out dozens of babies A YEAR. It seems I'm having to pull a few seedling a week from spring until fall. It is a very lovely, small tree and is a wonderful addition to any garden.

Lovely shrub that blooms in mid-summer when many other shrubs have finished. Blooms are very fragrant and attract mobs of butterflies. The leaves smell badly if crushed. Mine grows in Maryland at the edge of woodland and is about 15 feet tall. Uniquely colored calaxes and berries provide nice fall interest. I've never noticed birds eating them, though. Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania has at least two nice specimens. A real treat to have in the garden. A hardy plant that's pretty, too boot.

Maybe this plant is too tropical for the Pacific Northwest. The plant itself is healthy and blooms each year, but the flowers fall off without forming the calyxes or berries. I have seen others around Seattle that are covered with the berries, so am having a hard time diagnosing the problem. There are plenty of bees and butterflies in my garden, it is in well drained soil and has been fertilized. This year it got leggy and seemed to be getting some fungus. I will keep it for a few more years to see if it holds its berries, but if not it's coming out!

Wow! A freeze-tolerant tropical with lovely gray-green foliage, beautiful floral umbels of white - pink blossoms that attract butterflies from miles around, and easy enough for a 3rd grader to grow! We obtained ours from the nearby Mercer Arboretum during a tropicals symposium there, about 6 years ago, as a bare rooted limp thing that had been unceremoniously yanked from the good Mercer ground earlier that day. We put it in our deep sandy loam here at our place, under partial shade, and here it has thrived. Our soil tends to be rather acidic, easily leached, with a resultant thin humic layer. If there is a knock on this plant, it is that it is almost too easy to propogate. In the 6 years we've had this plant, its blue-black berries have given rise to half a dozen more within a 10' radius of the original. However, I have had no problem hawking these at plant swaps, etc. Mention "butterfly magnet" and they're gone!

Quite invasive, but friends love to have a plant so not a big problem. Called locally "Butterfly Tree". Butterflys and humming birds flock to it. My specimen tree is about 20 feet tall.

Unique flower/calyx/seed combo stops traffic. A very large example (15'x15') was recently removed here (Raleigh, NC) and was an outstanding small tree. Flowers start as cream colored buds in July then open as soft pink/white. Gradually, the calyx swells a bright magenta and the seed is a bright blue. Gives appearance of two separate flowering cycles lasting several months. Late frosts here in 7b-8a have done some damage, but not significant. Butterflies go right past the buddleia nearby and hover over this by the hundreds. Numerous "pass-alongs" in Johnston Co. NC have performed very well, I am told.

A deciduous shrub or tree. Leaves are usually entire, opposite, 10-23 cm x 5-10 cm, dark green, soft hairy. When bruised, they have the odor of peanut butter. White flowers appear in late summer and early fall, fragrant; showy red calyxes cover small, and ultimately, bright blue fruit.