Leaf
Pierre Bonnet, Tela Botanica · CC BY-SA 2.0
Smoke bush
Cotinus coggygria Scop.
Also known as: Smoketree, Wig tree
Family: Anacardiaceae
2 to 5 m tall and wide
Gardens, dry banks, free-draining limestone soils
Flowering: May – June
Full sun
Hardy to -25°C
❓ How do you recognise this plant?
After flowering, its flower clusters become covered in long silky hairs forming a hazy cloud reminiscent of a wig.
🍃 Leaves
Deciduous, rounded, green or purple depending on the variety, turning blazing red-orange in autumn
🌸 Flowers
Small yellowish flowers, grouped in feathery flower clusters; the long feathery structures consist mainly of sterile pedicels after flowering, not of the flowers themselves.
🍎 Fruits
After flowering, the pedicels become covered in long feathery hairs forming a hazy cloud
🪵 Bark
Brown-grey bark, slender twigs
🗺️ Distribution
Southern Europe, Asia; widely grown as an ornamental shrub throughout France, rarely wild.
🐝 Value for pollinators
Small nectar-rich flowers in feathery panicles, visited by bees in summer.
✂️ Horticultural uses
Planted as a specimen or in borders for its purple foliage and hazy flower clusters ("wigs").
⚠️ Possible toxicity
Sap can cause contact dermatitis in sensitive people (Anacardiaceae family, like poison sumac); wilted leaves reported as toxic to livestock if eaten in large quantities.
🌱 Known cultivars
Royal Purple
The best known of the purple smoke bushes: reddish-brown foliage at bud break, then deep wine-purple all summer, with the famous pink "smoke" panicles in summer.
Golden Spirit ('Ancot')
Acid-green to luminous golden foliage (instead of the usual purple), tolerating full sun well without scorching, with fine orange tints in autumn.
🌿 Other Anacardiaceae to discover
ℹ️ Educational profile — do not use it to judge whether a plant is edible or safe.
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