Steven Foster – From mid-March through early April redbud’s pink pea-like petals, held firm with a darker red base, mark the moment when spring vegetation changes daily. Blooming just before dogwoods, redbud is one of the better signals that winter is gone or you’ve been fooled into planting your garden too early and may become victim to a hard spring frost. The Kiowa welcomed the blooming redbud as the dawning of spring. Flowering branches were broken off and taken into people’s homes to “drive winter out.”
Our eastern redbud Cercis canadensis, is historically called Salad Tree. It’s time to pretty-up your salads with the colorful edible flowers, or if you wish, pickle them for future enjoyment. The flowers of the “salad tree” have a flavor similar to the first sweet young peas of the season, accompanied by a tart acidity, subdued with a hint of sweet nectar. Nothing beats these early blooms for color in salads. The buds, flowers and young green fruits can also be fried in a little butter or in batter as a tasty woodland morsel.
Redbud occurs in a range extending from Connecticut to Florida west Texas, and north through Wisconsin and southern Ontario. Eleven species are recognized in the genus Cercis, which as one might expect is in the Pea Family (Leguminosae or Fabaceae). Four species are found in North America. The generic name Cercis derives from the Greek name for the tree, coming from the supposed resemblance of the seedpods to a weaver’s shuttle.
Some call it a shrub, but it is a small tree usually, 12 to 15 feet tall, though rare specimens can grow to lofty heights of 50 feet or more. Mostly with branching trunks a few feet off the ground, its habit tends towards greater breadth than height. The seldom-used wood, which is hard but not strong and takes on a high polish, was used only for small mechanical instruments.
As an ornamental tree there is no doubt of redbud’s value, but couple that with the edibility of the colorful spring blooms and you have a tree not only excellent for landscaping, but deserving of a spot in the edible landscape, too. In his monumental 14-volume Silva of North America (1903, Vol. 3), Charles Sprague Sargent, the first director of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum wrote, “ … at the end of a few years, if space is given for its free development, [it] makes a broad-branched flat-topped tree of formal outline, handsome at all seasons of the year, and in flower a striking and delightful object.”
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