Halesia diptera Bob McCartney and the leaves and twigs

and the leaves and twigs were brewed as a tea for coughs

long-lived shrub

and today's taxonomists fold these Louisiana plants into the southern variety australis or simply into the species itself

the modest little groundcover that carpets sunny woodland edges

bell-shaped flowers run half again larger than the type

Halesia diptera Bob McCartney and the leaves and twigsIn spring, the bare gray branches of the two wing silverbell fill with small white bells, three to six to a cluster, hanging along the year old wood like a run of tiny lanterns. Each flower is a half inch, four lobed cup, and en masse they turn a modest understory tree into one of the quiet highlights of the southern woodland spring. This silverbell grows as a large multi stemmed shrub or a small tree, rarely more than thirty feet, with an open,