Bessey's sandcherry

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Bessey's sandcherry flowers

Bessey's sandcherry buds

Bessey's sandcherry flowers

Bessey's sandcherry leaves

Bessey's sandcherry habit

Bessey's sandcherry

Bessey's sandcherry leaf

Morphology

Trunk

Stems prostrate to decumbent or ascending; branches unarmed; sometimes forming colonies by root-suckers; bark reddish gray, smooth; wood white, white.

Twigs

Reddish brown to grayish brown, flexible, glabrous; leaf scar crescent-shaped; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .06 to .08 inch, apex obtuse, scales glabrous.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules caducous, linear, .16 to .4 inch, margins laciniate; petiole .02 to .05 inch, glabrous, eglandular or with 1-2 glands distally; blade oblanceolate, obovate, elliptic, 1 to 3.2 inches long, .4 to 1 inch wide, base cuneate, margins crenulate-serrulate to serrate, apex obtuse to acute, lower surface light green, glabrous, upper surface dark green, glabrous.

Flowers

Inflorescences terminal on short shoots, flowers 1 or sometimes umbel-like fascicles, 2-4-flowered, appearing with leaves; pedicels .12 to .52 inch, glabrous.Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric, .5 to .6 inch diam.; hypanthium bell-shaped, .08 to .14 inch, glabrous; sepals 5, erect to reflexed, broadly triangular to oblong, .05 to .1 inch long, margins glandular-toothed; petals 5, white, elliptic to nearly round, .28 to .55 inch; stamens 25-30; pistil 1, ovary superior, 1-locular, glabrous; style .2 to .24 inch; stigma capitate.

Fruit

June-August; drupes, dark purple, nearly spherical, .3 to .55 inch long, .28 to .5 inch wide, glabrous, not glaucous; stone 1, tan to light brown, globose to more or less compressed-spherical, .28 to .35 inch long, .2 to .3 inch wide, surface more or less rough.

Ecology

Habitat

Sandy to rocky mixed-grass prairies, sand prairies, rocky sites in tallgrass prairies.

Distribution

Principally north half of central 1/3 of Kansas

Additional Notes