I love my fringe tree. It is fragrant, though the blooms don't last a super long time. Also has a nice soft yellow fall color. It's one of those plants where the sum is greater then the parts. It won't enjoy being wet for too long though. A week in the spring would probably be fine, but saturated soils through the summer I think would be a problem. It's closely related to lilac and probably is about as tolerant of soggy sites. Ted

Quick-and-dirty definitions for those interested: androdioecious - having male plants and hermaphroditic-flowering plants in the same species. (not sure of relevance in this thread) parthenogenesis - production of unfertilized or misfertilized fruit that is often seedless or contains only infertile seed. thigmotropic - movement or growth of a plant, in response to physical contact. (no relevance in this thread) polydamo-dioecious - misspelling of polygamodioecious? polygamodioecious - mostly dioecious (having separate male and female individuals) with a limited amount of bisexual flowers present.

to each his own and they are both nice trees in my opinion but they usually need some restructuring if you want them to be arborescent. i think the native one is a fine looking tree in all seasons. i have posted these pictures of my c. virginicus before but perhaps they deserve another look after reading the not-so-glowing comments. spring show can be outstanding, fragrance is strong and sweet, bark is silvery during winter, some years the leaves exhibit better color (as can be true with other species). i happen to like the winter silhouette. i think a sunny site is the key to the development of branch stucture and flowering. i gave a c. retusus to a friend as a gift and, if i had not pruned it for her, it would be a dumpy mound with white spring flowers and nicely exfoliating bark (i read this trait disappears as it ages), absolutely no discernable fragrance to me and green-to-brown fall transition. "tiger tree" :-) if you don't prune them when young, they are apt to look like this c. virginicus with superfluous flowers and shapeless mounding habit.

There are several possibilities and this may be hard to diagnose definitively without seeing the plant. It does sound like the tree is in serious decline. Drainage can be an issue for a lot of trees. Michael Dirr says this tree is adaptable and in the wild grows along streambanks, so it sounds like it can handle moist conditions. If the drainage is very poor, then the problem is that air doesn't get to the roots and they suffocate. Only digging up the roots and inspecting them for condition will tell. Sometimes planting practices can cause problems even several years after planting. Specifically, planting too deep can compound difficulties of poorly aerated soils. Trees need to be planted with the root flare at the soil surface. You might look at the tree for this. My references do not list any diseases like Verticillium that display these symptoms. Have you had any gopher activity in the area? They can damage roots also.