FAMILY: ROSACEAE
ALTERNATE COMMON NAME:
LEAVES: deciduous, alternate, simple, with minute subulate and toothed, quickly-deciduous stipules; petioles to 0.4” long; blades elliptic, 2-5” long by 1-2” wide; tips acute, margins serrate with gland-bearing teeth; upper blade surface glabrous, bright green and lustrous early in the season, lower surface paler, glabrous or with wooly rust-colored pubescence to either side of the midrib along the proximal 1/3rd
FLOWER: perfect (bisexual), white, small, ca. 0.25” across, arranged in axillary racemes born on previous year’s twigs, racemes to ca. 3” long, often curved; flowering in early spring as leaves emerge or shortly after
FRUIT: globular (flattish apically) dark purple drupes ca. 0.4”; maturing summer
TWIGS: new shoots with purplish-red scales below the new leaves, these quickly falling; young twigs glabrous, green to suffused with reddish pigment; broken twigs with an almond-like odor
BARK: on young woody twigs thin and reddish brown after waxy bloom has sloughed, lenticels inconspicuous the first year, eventually prominent and horizontally elongate; bark of mature trees blackish and shiny, flaky (resembling burnt potato chips)
FORM: medium-sized tree to ca. 100’ tall, commonly flowering and fruiting much smaller, including when merely the stature of a shrub
HABITAT: mesic forests, including edges; fencerows, colonizing old fields and cutovers
WETLAND DESIGNATION: Facultative Upland (FACU): Usually occurs in non-wetlands, but may occur in wetlands of the Atlantic and Gulf Coast Plain Region
RANGE: eastern US; southwestern US, Mexico and Guatemala
[Global Distribution] [North American Distribution]
USES: wood very valuable, used for furniture, cabinets, gunstocks, paneling; fruit used to make wine, for flavoring liqueurs, and for jellies and preserves; ornamental
WILDLIFE: fruits are important food for numerous birds and mammals
Best Recognition Features:
- bark of young trees smooth with horizontally elongate lenticels; that of older trees shiny black and flaky
- leaves elliptic, singly serrate with teeth bearing red glands
- rusty pubescence on proximal portion of midrib on leaf undersurface
- characteristic odor of broken twigs
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