Sugarberry

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Sugarberry fruit

Sugarberry leaves

Sugarberry buds

Sugarberry

Sugarberry bark

Sugarberry fruit

Morphology

Trunk

Erect; bark light gray, furrows irregular, deep, ridges short, prominently corky or warty; wood white to light yellow, soft.

Twigs

Reddish brown, flexible, glabrate; leaf scars half-round; buds orangish brown to reddish brown, ovoid, .08 to .12 inch, apex acute, scales glabrous or minutely pubescent.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules caducous, lanceolate, .24 to .5 inch; petiole .24 to .4 inch; blade asymmetric, ovate to lanceolate, 1.6 to 3.6 inches long, .5 to 1.4 inch wide, thin to more or less thick, base rounded to cuneate, oblique, margins entire or with few teeth, ciliate, apex acuminate, lower surface yellowish green, glabrous or sparsely pubescent along veins and in axils of veins, upper surface light green, sparsely pubescent.

Flowers

Staminate inflorescences: axillary at base of new shoots, fascicles, 2-3-flowered or flowers solitary; pedicels .12 to .16 inch; pistillate inflorescences: axillary toward tip of new shoots, fascicles, 2-flowered or flowers solitary; pedicels .16 to .4 inch. Flowers mostly unisexual, few bisexual, radially symmetric; staminate flowers: sepals 4(-5), distinct, narrowly ovate, .1 to .14 inch, petals absent; stamens 4(-5); pistillate flowers: sepals 4(-5), connate proximally, calyx lobes ovate, ca. .1 inch; pistil 1; style 1; stigmas 2.

Fruit

September-October; drupes, orangish red to brownish red, nearly globose, .24 to .3 inch, glabrous; stone 1, cream-colored, nearly globose, .18 to .28 inch, irregularly marked with a network pattern.

Ecology

Habitat

Floodplain forests, stream banks, rocky slopes in valleys.

Distribution

South half of east 2/3 and northeast 1/6 of Kansas

Additional Notes