Itea virginica, Virginia Sweetspire, is a low-growing woody shrub known for its fragrant, massive displays of white flowers in the spring and the kaleidoscope of colorful purple, red, and orange leaves in the fall. Itea is popular with bees and butterflies, and it is a host plant for the American holly azure butterfly, Celastrina idella. Its fall berries provide rich food for songbirds and small mammals. Itea looks great in mass plantings, and it is an ideal native replacement for the highly invasive foundation shrub known as Burning Bush, Euonymus altus. 

–Tim Curley