1. Hamamelis vernalis Sarg. (Ozark witch-hazel, vernal witch-hazel)

Pl. 425 d–f; Map 1899

Plants shrubs to 4 m tall, spreading by woody underground runners. Twigs moderately to densely stellate-hairy. Leaves turning yellow to brown in autumn but generally persisting through the winter. Petioles 3–15 mm long. Leaf blades 7–12 cm long, 5.5–8.0 cm wide, elliptic or obovate, the base obtuse to rounded, weakly to moderately asymmetrical, sometimes narrowly cordate on one side and narrowed on the other, the tip rounded or broadly and bluntly pointed, the undersurface often glaucous. Flowers strongly fragrant. Petals 10–15 mm long when fresh (shrinking to 5–8 mm long in the herbarium), generally red or orange, rarely yellow. Staminodes not or only slightly broadened toward the tip. 2n=24. (December–)January–April.

Scattered in the southern portion of the state, in the Ozark and Ozark Border Divisons (Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma; endemic to the Ozark Plateau or nearly so). Gravelly and rocky places on banks of streams and rivers, rarely lower portions of wooded slopes.

Steyermark (1963) mapped this species from Stoddard County (presumably in Crowley’s Ridge), but thus far no specimen of any Hamamelis species has been located to support this claim. Plants with uniformly dark red flowers have been called f. carnea Rehder, and plants with the undersurface of the leaf densely pubescent have been called f. tomentella Rehder.