Species
+

Oxydendrum arboreum (L.) DC.

Sourwood, lily-of-the-valley tree, sorrel tree, sorreltree

Climate known 75 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Oxydendrum arboreum, commonly known as sourwood or sorrel tree, is the sole species in the genus Oxydendrum, in the family Ericaceae. It is native to eastern North America, from southern Pennsylvania south to northwest Florida and west to southern Illinois; it is most common in the lower chain of the Appalachian Mountains. The tree is frequently seen as a component of oak-heath forests.

Text from Wikipedia, “Oxydendrum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Oxydendrum

Oxydendrum arboreum, commonly known as sourwood or sorrel tree, is the sole species in the genus Oxydendrum, in the family Ericaceae. It is native to eastern North America, from southern Pennsylvania south to northwest Florida and west to southern Illinois; it is most common in the lower chain of the Appalachian Mountains. The tree is frequently seen as a component of oak-heath forests.

Text from Wikipedia, “Oxydendrum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Ericaceae
Described by
(L.) DC.
Native to
Indiana, New Jersey, New York +14
Wild records
1899 in range· 490 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Jul, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1321mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 130 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–39DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (December to March and May to August in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1321 mm a year, wettest July at 130 mm, driest October at 89 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 39 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -10.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Andromeda arborea L.; Lyonia arborea (L.) D.Don.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (December to March and May to August in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (925 mm of 1321 mm) takes 8 months, December to March and May to August. Mean temperature moves 21.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to February and June to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1321 mm a year, wettest July at 130 mm, driest October at 89 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1321 mm a year at the habitat, 925 mm of it December to March and May to August. Wettest month July at 130 mm, driest October at 89 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1133 mm to 1656 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 39 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 39 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 40).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -10.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -10.4 °C, the absolute minimum -23.6 °C, about 75 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.1 °C in January (across the envelope cells -4.2 °C to 3.5 °C), warmest day 30.4 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -10.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 55 to 61% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 9 °C in Jan to 30 °C in Jul; mean night from -0 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1321 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1197 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -23.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost36.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-23.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 15–39RH 55–61 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1197 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C9 / 5–1311 / 7–1516 / 11–1920 / 17–2325 / 21–2729 / 25–3130 / 26–3230 / 26–3126 / 23–2921 / 17–2415 / 12–1810 / 6–14
Night °C-0 / -4–41 / -3–55 / 1–89 / 6–1214 / 11–1719 / 15–2121 / 17–2320 / 17–2317 / 13–2011 / 8–146 / 3–92 / -2–5
Rain mm108 / 84–149116 / 80–157120 / 98–151103 / 82–131111 / 89–140115 / 102–151130 / 111–164114 / 92–146104 / 85–13589 / 73–108100 / 80–129111 / 86–156
DLI16 / 14–1821 / 19–2228 / 26–2936 / 33–3738 / 37–4039 / 39–4038 / 37–3934 / 34–3629 / 28–3124 / 22–2518 / 15–1915 / 12–16
RH %58 / 56–5957 / 56–5856 / 55–5755 / 54–5758 / 56–6059 / 58–6261 / 59–6361 / 59–6460 / 58–6258 / 57–5958 / 57–5959 / 57–60

Each figure is the median across the 1197 grid cells holding the 1736 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1100:1892 (34.975, -85.375). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -23.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -10.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.5 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1197 distinct grid cells holding the 1736 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1100:1892 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.00_-85.625, lapse-corrected +3 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 386 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeIndiana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia· introduced: Illinois
Kew's description“tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker35.451, -82.742 · in the densest population, 1159 records (61% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1899 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 490 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 18 km away. 15 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 163 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 1899 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Oxydendrum arboreumOxydendrum arboreumOxydendrum arboreumOxydendrum arboreumOxydendrum arboreumOxydendrum arboreumOxydendrum arboreumOxydendrum arboreum

Photographs: (c) Michael J. Papay, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) Sandy Wolkenberg, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Oxydendrum arboreum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

How fast and far might tree species migrate in the eastern United States due to climate change?
Louis R. Iverson, Mark W. Schwartz, Anantha Prasad (2004) · Global Ecology and Biogeography
Aboveground biomass and nitrogen allocation of ten deciduous southern Appalachian tree species
Jonathan G. Martin, Brian D Kloeppel, Tara L Schaefer, Darrin L Kimbler (1998) · Canadian Journal of Forest Research
Impacts of drought on tree mortality and growth in a mixed hardwood forest
K. J. Elliott, Wayne T. Swank (1994) · Journal of Vegetation Science
Day-Roost Characteristics of Northern Bats in Mixed Mesophytic Forest
Michael J. Lacki, Jeffrey H. Schwierjohann (2001) · Journal of Wildlife Management
Tree recruitment and growth on 20-year-old, unreclaimed surface mined lands in West Virginia
Jeff Skousen, Paul Ziemkiewicz, Christina Venable (2006) · International Journal of Mining Reclamation and Environment
Foliar dehydration tolerance of twelve deciduous tree species
Robert M. Augé, Xiangrong Duan, J. L. Croker, W.T. Witte (1998) · Journal of Experimental Botany
Effects of Prescribed Burning on Deer Browse
Gary G. Dills (1970) · Journal of Wildlife Management
Litter Flammability of 50 Southeastern North American Tree Species: Evidence for Mesophication Gradients Across Multiple Ecosystems
J. Morgan Varner, Jeffrey M. Kane, Jesse K. Kreye, Timothy M. Shearman (2021) · Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
Responses of Understory Tree Seedlings to Trenching
John C. Horn (1985) · The American Midland Naturalist
Foliar dehydration tolerance of twelve deciduous tree species
Robert M. Augé (1998) · Journal of Experimental Botany

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 67 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.