Hackberry

An ecologically dense, genuinely tough canopy tree that feeds butterflies and winter birds in conditions where other trees give up.

Hackberry is the tree ecologists call one of the most underrated canopy trees in eastern North America. Irregular corky bark creates a distinctive silhouette year-round. Dark purple berries ripen in fall and persist through winter, sustaining cedar waxwings, robins, and bluebirds during cold snaps when other food sources have been depleted. The tree is a host plant for hackberry emperor, question mark, and Eastern comma butterflies. It grows in conditions that stress most other canopy trees: dry soils, compacted urban ground, alkaline clay, and wind-exposed sites. Plant it in a difficult spot and it will thrive where a more sensitive tree would struggle for decades. Hackberry is the canopy tree for sites where you need ecological function without ideal conditions.