Calycanthus occidentals is a native deciduous shrub most often found in moist places near streams and rivers. Their maroon-red flowers do not have distinctive sepals or petals but have swirls of “tepals” resembling waterlilies and having a wine-like fragrance. Their flowers are pollinated by beetles in the Nitidulidae family…the “Sap Beetles”. Once pollenated the seeds develop in an elliptic dry capsule (below) and spill onto the ground when the seeds are ready to disperse and germinate.
