flower
Hamamelis virginiana is a small,
deciduous tree or shrub growing up to , rarely to tall, often with a dense cluster of stems from its base. The
bark is light brown, smooth, scaly, inner bark reddish purple. The
branchlets are
pubescent at first, later smooth, light orange brown, marked with occasional white dots, finally dark or reddish brown. The foliage buds are acute, slightly
falcate, downy, light brown. The
leaves are oval, long and broad, oblique at the base, acute or rounded at the apex, with a wavy-toothed or shallowly lobed margin, and a short, stout
petiole long; the
midrib is more or less hairy, stout, with six to seven pairs of primary veins. The young leaves open
involute, covered with stellate rusty down; when full grown, they are dark green above, and paler beneath. In fall, they turn yellow with rusty spots. The leaf
stipules are
lanceolate, acute; they fall soon after the leaf expands. The
flowers are pale to bright yellow, rarely orange or reddish, with four ribbon-shaped
petals long and four short stamens, and grow in clusters; flowering begins in about mid-fall and continues until late fall. The floral is
imbricate in bud, deeply four-parted, very downy, and orange brown within. Two or three bractlets appear at base. The
fruit is a hard woody
capsule long, which splits explosively at the apex at maturity one year after pollination, ejecting the two shiny black
seeds up to distant from the parent plant.
Hamamelis virginiana can be distinguished from the related
Hamamelis vernalis by its flowering in fall, not winter. ==Ecology==