Viburnums have often confused me. This is where I should say I’m not easily confused, but that would be a lie. On the other hand, I’ll bet there’s at least one other person out there who thought for the longest time that a snowball bush was some kind of hydrangea.

Everybody’s seen a viburnum, but not everyone knows what they’ve just seen. They may not be the chameleons of home gardening, but they come pretty darned close as far as I’m concerned.

Even the bastions of botany were confused when it came to viburnums. Taxonomists long ago put them in the Caprifoliaceae, or honeysuckle, plant family until their DNA revealed they weren’t related to honeysuckles at all. They were summarily kicked out of that family along with four other similar outliers, including elderberry, and given their own family: Adoxaceae.

Because they’re easy to care for, have showy, fragrant flowers and sometimes even showier berries, you’ll often find them in landscaping near public buildings.

And because some varieties need little or no pruning to maintain a pleasing shape, homeowners may readily plant them in areas they like to think of as “low maintenance.”

The lie of low maintenance is a story for another day and another column.

Viburnum is a genus of about 150 to 175 deciduous and evergreen shrubs and small trees that don’t always look related. They can appear so different from one another you could have several of them growing in your yard and the uninitiated would never know they were close relatives.

Take, for example, that snowball bush I was talking about earlier. Viburnum opulus is a deciduous shrub with three-lobed, maple-like leaves and large, white  lacecap-type flower heads in spring, followed by drooping clusters of red berries in fall. A cultivar, V. opulus “Roseum,” on the other hand, has snowball-shaped flower heads, hence the name. The flowers, however, are completely sterile and will not result in berries.

And then there’s Viburnum davidii. It’s an evergreen shrub with long, lance-shaped, leathery leaves with three deeply incised veins. Its small white flowers grow in flat-topped clusters in summer and are followed by bright, medium blue flowers in fall.

V. japonicum is evergreen with very shiny leaves and red berries. The fruits of the evergreen V. odoratissimum start out red but turn black. V. carlesii is a deciduous shrub with pink buds that open out into white flowers.

If you’re thinking of growing one of the fruiting varieties for their awesome berries, know that most viburnums are dioecious, meaning the male and female flowers are born on different plants. You will need a male plant to pollinate the female to get fruit. Even if you have the right partners to tango, fruit may still not set on very early-blooming varieties if it was too wet, cold or windless at bloom time.

Another thing you should note: though I’ve seen V. davidii listed as slightly deer resistant, I’d definitely put the emphasis on “slightly.” I’ve seen stands of these shrubs decimated by those four-legged weedwhackers and would put them at about the same level of resistance as heaths and hydrangeas.

Finally, if you thought a highbush cranberry was a cranberry, guess again. It’s a viburnum too. Surprised?