Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia

Eastern Redbud

Cercis canadensis

The Eastern Redbud native to North America. It is a hardy, deciduous, spring flowering tree with graceful heart-shaped leaves and purplish-pink, pea-like flowers.

AI generated image from an original Monticello photograph
In Bloom
April
Growth Type
Deciduous Tree
Hardiness
4-9
Conditions
Full Sun to Partial Shade
Location
East Lawn
Colors
Pink, Purple
Documented By
Thomas Jefferson
Seeds
Available in our online shop

In 1781, Thomas Jefferson listed "redbud or Judas-tree" in his Notes on the State of Virginia as a native "Esculent" tree.1 He intended it to be a part of his shrubbery scheme for the western slope of Monticello and in the clumps of trees planted in the angles of the house in 1807.2 likewise directed that redbuds be planted among clumps of native trees and shrubs at Poplar Forest in 1812.3 One of the earliest American references to this tree was made by John Custis in correspondence with Peter Collinson in 1735.4

Primary Source References

1771. (Miscellaneous Memoranda). "Trees.--Redbud."5

1771 September 30. "Trees...Red-bud."6

1791 May 8. (Jefferson to Maria Jefferson Eppes). "May 4th the gelder-rose, dog-wood, redbud, azalea were in blossom."7

1807 April 16. (Weather Memorandum Book). "planted as follows...1. Red bud (N. E. clump)...the above were from Maine except 5 horse chestnuts from nursery & the Redbud"8

1812 Nov. (Planting Memorandum for Poplar Forest). "...clump of Athenian & Balsam poplars at each corner of house. intermix locusts, common and Kentucky, redbuds, dogwoods, calycanthus, liriodendron."9

1817 January. (Summary of Jefferson's Meteorological Journal, 1810-1816). "The Red bud [comes into blossom], from April 2 to Apr. 19."10

1818 April 11. (Jefferson to Jacob Bigelow). "The red bud blooms Apr. 2-19."11

Further Sources

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Footnotes

  1. Notes ed. Peden, 40.  The redbud is often called "Judas-tree," which actually refers to a Mediterranean species, Cercis siliquastrum, a species Judas supposedly used to hang himself; see Joan Parry Dutton, Plants of Colonial Williamsburg (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg, 1979), 48.
  2. Betts, Garden Book, 334.e
  3. Ibid., 494
  4. Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 405.
  5. Betts, Garden Book, 27
  6. Ibid., 23. Manuscript and transcription at the Massachusetts Historical Society
  7. PTJ, 20:380.
  8. Betts, Garden Book, 333-4
  9. Ibid., 494
  10. Ibid., 627
  11. Ibid., 579, and L&B, 19:261.  Polygraph copy at the Library of Congress