Summer Cypress

Kochia scoparia

Also known as Burning Bush, Belvedere, Mexican Firebrush, Fireweed, Di Fu Zi (seed, in Traditional Chinese Medicine)

At a glance

Family

Amaranthaceae (formerly classified in Chenopodiaceae)

Type

Fast-growing annual forb, often grown as an ornamental hedge

Parts used

Seeds (fruit) in traditional Chinese medicine; foliage grown ornamentally

Size

1 to 3 feet tall, forming a dense, rounded, cypress-like bush

Bloom

Late summer, small greenish flowers that are easy to miss among the foliage

Habitat

Roadsides, waste ground, and dry open plains; native to Eurasia and now naturalized across much of North America

Acquisition

Grow

This plant in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Traditionally used for skin itching

Historic support for urinary comfort

Ornamental hedge and screening

Dramatic, low-care autumn color

Traditional uses

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Long before it became a garden favorite, Kochia scoparia was known to herbalists in China, where the dried seed, called Di Fu Zi, was traditionally gathered in autumn and used to address itchy skin conditions and urinary discomfort. It found its way into old formulas alongside other cooling, drying herbs, valued for calming irritation rather than as an everyday tonic. In the West, the plant took on an entirely different life as a landscape ornamental, prized for its tidy, feathery form that flushes brilliant crimson each fall, earning it the nickname burning bush. Its dual identity, quiet medicinal footnote in the East and showy hedge plant in the West, makes it one of the more curious entries in any herbal atlas.

How to grow & use it

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Pairs well with

✦Often paired historically with other cooling, skin-soothing herbs such as chrysanthemum and plantain leaf in traditional East Asian herbalism

Substitutes

✦Calendula (for traditional skin-soothing use)
✦Cleavers (for traditional urinary support)

Choose it when

“For the gardener who wants a hedge that spends all summer as quiet green lace, then lights up like embers the moment autumn arrives.”

Did you know?

Gardeners call it burning bush because its soft green, cypress-like foliage turns a fiery crimson-purple with the first cool nights of autumn, a transformation so reliable that entire hedges are planted just to watch it happen.

Safety

The foliage can build up oxalates and nitrates, and livestock that graze on it heavily have developed skin photosensitization along with liver and kidney stress. The dried seed (Di Fu Zi) has a long history in Traditional Chinese Medicine but only in small, professionally prepared doses, never as a home tea, and it is avoided in pregnancy.