Plant of the Month: Sugar Hackberry

Presented by Veronica Mata Bernal
October 9, 2023

Botanical name: Celtis laevigata
Common name(s): Sugar Hackberry, Texas Sugarberry, Sugarberry, Southern Hackberry, Lowland Hackberry, Hackberry, Palo Blanco
Family: Ulmaceae

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[Veronica] Hello, everyone. Today we will be talking about a tree and this tree is called Sugar Hackberry. And it’s also known as Celtis laevigata. It is part of the elm family.

Ways to identify it is through its bark and leaves. The bark is usually a soft, smooth surface with wart-like protrusions. Its leaves are deciduous, lanceolate, ovate and acuminated. Its duration, it is a perennial tree. It’s usually at about 80 feet tall. It has a fruit type, and that fruit type is edible drupe. The colors of the drupe are orange to reddish and they are also found as black. It blooms from February through April, and it blooms in a green color. Right here we see the protrusions also and I wanted to note that sometimes they do have a lot of wart-like protrusions. And sometimes they have a lot less, like in this picture, but, either way, it is a Sugar Hackberry and it’s a way to identify it.

Distribution — The distribution of it is through many regions. These regions are South Maryland, Florida, West to Central Illinois, North Missouri, Southeast Kansas and Texas, and southern Mexico. These regions, they are habitats which are like thickets, open woodlands, streams, and/or riverbanks.

The conditions to where it grows, light, full sun. That’s what it needs. It needs six to more hours of direct sunlight and partial shade. It does need some partial shade. Water quantity that it needs is high. Soil textures are clay, loam, sand, and high organic matter. Soil drainage, moist, occasional flooding, occasional dry. And soil pH, it’s acidic to slightly above neutral which is pH of 6 through 8.

Uses and Benefits — Wildlife, obviously they benefit from the Sugar Hackberry. Some of this wildlife are songbirds such as mockingbirds and robins. They eat their fruit and use the tree as a nesting area. And, to my surprise, they also attract butterflies. They are moderately deer resistant and other uses of it are furniture, plywood, flooring, posts and many other things.

As for propagation, you can plant during the fall. And if the seed is stratified, then plant during the spring. It can also be rooted from young wood, suckers, and/or root sprouts. The best time to pick the seeds will be late summer up to winter. The way to prepare these seeds is to air dry them with pulp on. If not, overnight, soak in water and rub off the pulp. Then store it in the fridge in a sealed container. This would be at around 60 to 90 days at 41°F. And then after this, of course, you go ahead and plant them.

And that is it. These are my sources.

Thank you very much.

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