Fothergilla (witch alder) is a genus of two or three species of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, native to woodland and swamps of the southeastern United States.

A. It is a pleasure to recommend fothergilla, a shrub far less well known than it ought to be, possibly because its common name is witch alder (it is related to witch hazel).

Willow and witch alder, stunted birch and poplar had found roothold, clothed it, until only their crowding outposts, thrusting forward in a wavering semicircle, held back seemingly by the blue hordes, showed where it melted into the meadows.

Atop a fothergilla leaf, a fat bumblebee is slumbering, motionless.

In June, the dusty blue of the unripened berries mirrors the fothergilla's blue leaves.

A bit better behaved, but equally a show-off is the oddly flowered shrub called Fothergilla.

If you have an alkaline one, forget stewartia, enkianthus, fothergilla and nyssa.

John Fothergill - Physician and botanist, Fothergilla is named for him.

These include quince, kerria, fothergilla and witch hazels.

Blue Mist fothergilla (F. gardenii) has a reputation for ease of care and consistently blue leaves.

As sun finds the fothergilla, the bumblebee flurries its wings, levitates, and lumbers away at last, buzzing with rich cargo.

Wide enough for two, it snakes around a huge southern magnolia and past a shrub border of fothergilla, pieris and chokeberry.

Other closely allied genera are Parrotiopsis, Fothergilla and Sycopsis (see under Hamamelidaceae).

In midspring, fothergilla has sweet-smelling white bottlebrush-shape flowers on the ends of the branches, abundant enough for you to say "cloud of bloom" without blushing.

It has 7,000 trees and shrubs, like clethra, fothergilla, ceanothus and, from China, the fragrant seven-sons plant (Heptacodium miconioides).

Finally, Fothergill's preference is well epitomised by Linnaeus suitably giving the name of Fothergilla to a shrub of brilliant autumn foliage.

Full sun: baby's breath, blueberry shrub, butterfly bush, coneflower, fothergilla, lavender cotton, lilac, potentilla, rose of Sharon, scabiosa, veronica, yarrow.

Blue Mist fothergilla (F. gardenii "Blue Mist") features white, bottlebrush-shaped flowers in spring and handsome blue-green foliage in other seasons.

Fothergilleae (8 genera; Molinadendron, Fothergilla, Parrotiopsis, Parrotia, Sycopsis, Distyliopsis, Distylium, Matudaea)

Fothergilla gardenii (Dwarf Fothergilla or Dwarf Witchalder) is a flowering plant in the Hamamelidaceae family.

Fothergilla major (mountain witch alder) is a species of flowering plant in the Hamamelidaceae family, native to woodland and swamps in the Allegheny Mountains of southeastern United States.

A. It is a pleasure to recommend fothergilla, a shrub far less well known than it ought to be, possibly because its common name is witch alder (it is related to witch hazel).

Witch Hazel Blueberry Bridal Wreath Fothergilla Leucothoe Lilac Mock Orange Pieris Rhododendron Summer Flowering Shrubs:

On the edges, and in the cleared spaces in the woods, Robinson established plantings of Japanese anemone, lily, acanthus, and pampas grass, along with shrubs such as fothergilla, stewartia, and nyssa.

He sent various magnolias and some Gordonia specimens to London, and wrote descriptions of Stillingia and Fothergilla, but ironically the plant named for him was nothing to do with his efforts, and not even American.

But how often is there a woodland garden full of rare wild rhododendrons, andromeda, creamy hellebores, pale green fothergilla, white columbine, blue creeping phlox and 35-foot white birch trees - absolutely dwarfed by the G.E. Building?

Thomas G. Ranney and Nathan P. Lynch, Clarifying Taxonomy and Nomenclature of Fothergilla (Hamamelidaceae) Cultivars and Hybrids, HORTSCIENCE 42(3):470-473.

For Michael Dirr, the author of "The Manual of Woody Landscape Plants" (Stypes Publishing,1990, $32.80) and a professor of horticulture at the University of Georgia, the shrub of choice is Fothergilla Mount Airy.