ID

426-701

Authors as Published

Alex X. Niemiera, Professor, School of Plant and Environemental Sciences, Virginia Tech

This publication is available in a PDF file format only.

What is a shrub? A shrub is generally considered a multi-stem woody plant that is less than 15 feet tall. Of course, this and other plant size categories are definitions contrived by humans to categorize nature. What is the difference between a large shrub and a small tree? In many cases, there is none. A shrub does not become a tree just because it grows higher than 15 feet. Classifying plants into ground cover, shrub, and tree designations are aids to allow us to conveniently classify and describe plants, albeit with a significant amount of ambiguity.


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Publication Date

November 5, 2018