Wafer Ash: A Perfect Garden Tree

On one of my first walks in the Texas Hill Country near my new house, I found a curious but very pretty set of little trees with seeds in what looked like tiny transparent doll plates. I took samples home and found it was the Wafer Ash or Hop tree, Ptelea trifoliata. I immediately put it on my list of trees to acquire and took some of the seeds in their interesting little saucers to plant. Currently they are still in my refrigerator since I missed them when I took out the other seeds I was stratifying. Today I did a morning walk with my camera and captured it on film and remembered how much I liked it.

A row of Wafer Ashes

The wafer ash is a host plant for Giant Swallowtail and the Two-tailed Tiger Swallowtail, two species that occur in the Texas Hill Country, which made me want it even more.

It is a very undemanding tree and will grow in most kinds of soils and in most kinds of light from full sun to full shade. But I think it likes to grow in light shade the best as that is where I found it, growing under oak trees along a roadside. It only grows to be 5 -20 feet high and about 10 feet wide. It is also a huge range,from Quebec, down the east coast through the South to the Midwest and west to California. That includes zones 4-8. Sometimes it is a little shrub and other times a small tree.

The only drawback I can find about it is that the leaves are kind of stinky. But apparently you have to crush them to get the odor. And the small white flowers are supposed to have a rich citrus smell. This tree is in the citrus family, and has the family smell. The leaves are in sets of three - bet you already guessed that from the name – and are very beautiful in themselves.

Wafer Ash Fruit (samaras)

This tree has historical medical benefits and was used in place of hops by early settlers even though it has poisonous substances in it. I even found it listed as a food tree but would not recommend it.

Hopefully I’ll get some babies started to plant on our new property next year. There are many places where this tree will do well and support butterflies.

They are easy to grow from seeds. You can collect them in the early fall and plant them outside and let them overwinter. They should sprout the following spring. They will also grow from softwood cuttings taken now through October.