Chionanthus virginicus

Chionanthus virginicus is a deciduous tree or large shrub, grows as wide as high, with fragrant lacy white "fringe" flowers on drooping clusters in late spring as the leaves are emerging. Male and female flowers are most often found on seperate plants. Purple, fleshy, ball shaped fruits appear on female plants only. Yellow fall color.

Fringe Tree can be noted in nature growing to as much as 10 to 11 metres (33 to 36 ft) tall, though ordinarily less.  In landscape situations, it is normally described as measuring 8' high x 8' wide.  The bark is scaly, brown tinged with red. The shoots are light green, downy at first, later becoming light brown or orange. The buds are light brown, ovate, acute, 3 millimetres (0.12 in) long. The leaves are opposite, simple, ovate or oblong, 7.5 to 20 centimetres (3.0 to 7.9 in) long and 2.5 to 10 centimetres (0.98 to 3.9 in) broad, with a petiole 2 centimetres (0.79 in) long, and an entire margin; they are hairless above, and finely downy below, particularly along the veins, and turn yellow in fall. The richly-scented flowers have a pure white, deeply four-lobed corolla, the lobes thread-like, 1.5 to 2.5 centimetres (0.59 to 0.98 in) long and 3 millimetres (0.12 in) broad; they are produced in drooping axillary panicles 10 to 25 centimetres (3.9 to 9.8 in) long when the leaves are half grown, in mid- to late May in New York City, earlier in the south.

It is usually dioecious, though occasional plants bear flowers of both sexes. The fruit is an ovoid dark blue to purple drupe 1.5 to 2 centimetres (0.59 to 0.79 in) long, containing a single seed (rarely two or three), mature in late summer to mid fall.  A normal landscape-sized plant is 8'x8'.