Striking bloom show on a well-structured evergreen shrub or small tree

Flowers: Conspicuous fingers of cream-white flowers

Foliage: Evergreen to semi-evergreen, simple, alternate, generally oblong 2 to 4 inches long and 1" wide; while reported to have good fall color, ours have been only fair

Exposure: Full-sun to part shade; blooms best in full sun

Water: Swamp lover but does quite well in well-drained soils if mulched well. Water and mulch well when young; drought resistant once well established.

Habit: To 15’ or greater but easy to keep in bounds at 8 – 10’ and half that wide as a multi-stem shrub with lower branching exposed.

Uses: Massing in full sun can be spectacular, part of an informal hedge, mixed borders, woodland screen, wet sunny spots, specimen.

Notes: This is one of my favorite East Texas natives. At home all across the South from Virginia to Florida and west into eastern Texas, this species always makes a big hit when in bloom. In the Arboretum, it seems like every bee in the county is after our TiTis. I have enjoyed what was said to be TiTi honey - but not being a honey connisseur leaves me unqualified to make a judgment on just how good or bad it really was - it seemed fine to me. When not in bloom, most find the glossy dark green leaves appealing and TiTi has a beautiful form when given room to grow. We prefer to train the tree as a multi-stem specimen with the lower third exposed. The tree root suckers in moist organic soils but is fairly easy to keep in bounds with annual or biennial pruning. We find TiTi to be an extremely durable tree in a wet habitat, yet, it does almost as well in drier spots once well established under a good mulch. The tree has an appealing structure. In full sun with a little pruning here and there, Titi can be quite dense and, again, a real standout in bloom. We think the species is probably best in mass and positioned in wet full-sun spots in the garden for maximum vigor. There are very few cultivars in the trade. ‘Granitesville’ in the Arboretum is a smaller leafed version and slower growing for us. There are several clones floating in collections here and there that may deserve greater attention.

Cyrilla parviflora is closely related with similar preferences, basically a smaller-leafed and, for us, slower growing TiTi. Cyrilla arida is from central Florida, tolerates dry soils well, and is a bit denser and more bush-like than C. racemiflora.

TiTi is easy to propagate from seed or cuttings. As one might suspect from the suckering nature of the plant, root cuttings work well.

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