Black haw

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Black haw bark

Black haw buds

Black haw fruit

Black haw leaves

Black haw inflorescence

Black haw leaf

Black haw buds

Black haw leaves

Morphology

Trunk

Stems or trunk erect; branches unarmed; bark gray, fissures shallow, ridges blocky, flat; wood tan, hard.

Twigs

Brown to grayish brown, rigid, glabrate; leaf scars crescent-shaped; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .12 to .28 inch, apex acute, scales glabrous or with few minute stellate hairs.

Leaves

Deciduous, opposite, simple; petiole .2 to .6 inch, sparsely stellate-pubescent; blade broadly elliptic, 1.6 to 3.2 inch long, 1 to 1.8 inch wide, base cuneate, margins finely serrate to serrulate, apex acute to short-acuminate, lower surface light green to light yellowish green, sparsely stellate-pubescent initially, eventually glabrescent, upper surface dark green to dark yellowish green, glabrous or sparsely stellate-pubescent along midvein.

Flowers

Inflorescences terminal on new growth, cymes, rounded, 2 to 4 inches wide, 80-150-flowered; peduncles 0 to .28 inch, glabrous or sparsely stellate-pubescent; pedicels .12 to .24 inch, glabrous or sparsely stellate-pubescent. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; hypanthium green, cylindric, .08 to .1 inch; sepals 5, connate proximally, lobes triangular; petals 5, connate proximally, corolla rotate, lobes white, ovate, .1 to .14 inch; stamens 5; pistil 1; style 1, ca. .05 inch; stigma capitate.

Fruit

September-October; drupes, bluish black, ellipsoid to ovoid, slightly compressed, .4 to .5 inch long, .3 to .35 inch wide, glabrous, glaucous; stone 1, brown, ovate, strongly compressed, .3 to .43 inch long, .24 to .3 inch wide, rough.

Ecology

Habitat

Floodplain and upland forests and woodlands, stream banks, bases of bluffs.

Distribution

East 1/6 of Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

Several Native American tribes prepared a tonic using root bark or an infusion using bark, sometimes along with leaves, as a gynecological aid, oral aid, diaphoretic, anticonvulsive, or disease remedy (Moerman 1998). The fruits of Viburnum prunifolium are somewhat mealy but sweet (Stephens 1973); they were eaten raw or cooked by the Meskwaki tribe (Moerman 1998).