Weeping Japanese hackberry (Celtis sinensis ‘Green Cascade’)

Features and Characteristics

Celtis sinensis, commonly called Chinese hackberry, is a deciduous (infrequently semi-evergreen), fast-growing tree in the hemp family (formerly included in the elm family) that typically matures to 40-60’ tall and 35-50’ wide with a round wide-spreading crown. It is native to slopes in eastern China, Japan and Korea. Pointed, ovate to ovate-elliptic, round-toothed green leaves (2-5” long) are dark and glossy above but paler and somewhat hairy beneath with rounded to obliquely truncate bases. Leaves turn yellow in fall. Inconspicuous monoecious greenish flowers bloom from the leaf axils and stem bases in spring (March-early May). Female flowers are followed by fruits (globose drupes to 1/3” long) which have stalks about the same length as the leaf stalks. Immature fruits are green, but mature to orange before finally turning reddish-brown in fall. Birds consume the drupes and disperse the seeds. Mature trees have smooth gray to gray-brown bark.

Genus name comes from the Greek name for another tree.

Specific epithet means Chinese.

‘Green Cascade’ is a weeping cultivar whose branches weep to the ground. It is best trained over gates, pergolas, garden arbors or large trellises. It has no tendrils and will not twine like a vine, so it must be attached to a support structure by tying or draping. Unsupported plants will not grow as upright trees, but will simply spread along the ground in a mounded form (sometimes being referred to as “hackberry snakes”). Supported trees may be trained to varying heights. ‘Green Cascade’ was reportedly brought into the U.S. from Japan in 1983 as seed collected from a specimen tree at Suwa Jinja shrine in the village of Kamiyamaguchimura. It is winter hardy to USDA Zones 7 (perhaps – -9.