Sourwood is a small to medium native tree of the Appalachian Mountains and adjacent areas, celebrated for two things: its drooping clusters of fragrant white bell-shaped flowers in midsummer, which attract bees and produce Sourwood honey — considered among the finest honeys in the world — and its spectacular scarlet and crimson fall foliage, among the earliest and most vivid of any eastern tree. Its acidic, strap-shaped leaves give it the name Sourwood. It grows on dry, acidic mountain slopes and ridges throughout the central and southern Appalachians.
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