When I was a student in Houston there was a large gnarled old vitex tree that grew next to the driveway of my rented house. In the summer I would have to sweep aside the branches to get into my car. I learned to like the fragrance of the foliage and I equally enjoyed the dark blue spikey flowers.

I was not familiar with vitex then so I had to ask my friend (who was also named Bill) about the tree. This other Bill loved trees and knew all that could be known about them. He had bought a piece of land outside town and gone into the landscaping and nursery business. He was planting trees on his land with the intention of making his living selling them and planting them on other people’s property. He lived frugally. His land did not have a house on it so he bought one of those pre-fabricated sheds like they sell at the big hardware stores. He had it set up on his land and that’s where he lived. There was no insulation in the walls and no plumbing. He had a cast-iron wood-burning stove that sufficed for both heating and cooking.

Eventually Bill met a pretty librarian who tamed his wild ways and they moved off to her native Oregon. But not before he transferred a little bit of his knowledge and interest in trees on to me. And of course he identified the vitex tree for me. It has become one of my favorite trees and I can’t imagine living without one now.

Vitex is a common plant in the South. You see it often in old neighborhoods. It likes lots of sun and is very tolerant of drought. Many people think it is native but it actually originated in south Asia. It can be either a large shrub or a small tree up to about twenty feet. It is naturally multi-trunked, but if you cut back all but one or two of the trunks it becomes more tree-like. The leaves look like marijuana, which gives rise to the nickname “hemp tree.”

Another common name is “chaste tree.” For centuries the legend has persisted that the fragrance of the flowers reduces passion. Some say that the tree was often planted around monasteries in Europe for this reason. The flowers are very popular with bees and I’ve read that some of the best honey comes from bees that feed on vitex.