Landscape Plants

A small genus of 7 deciduous shrubs and small trees.  Leaves simple, alternate, entire; stipules deciduous.  Flowers small, in sessile clusters or short racemes, often appearing on old wood, mauve to pale pink to white.  Fruit leathery to woody, flat, with several flat seeds.  Native range includes eastern Asia, southern Europe, U.S. and Mexico.
Cercis: from the Greek kerkis, a weaver's shuttle, the name given by Theophrastus as a description of the large, flattened fruit.