Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

WOOLLY BUCKTHORN

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Sideroxylon lanuginosum Michx.

[=Bumelia lanuginosa (Michx. ) Pers.]

Schermerhorn Park, Cherokee County, Kansas

Height: Shrubs or trees, to 40 feet

Family: Sapotaceae - Sapodilla Family

Flowering Period: July, August, September,October

Also Called:

Chittamwood, gum-elastic.

Trunks:

Stems or trunk erect; branches armed, thorns straight, reddish brown to grayish brown, .4 to 1.6 inches; bark dark gray, furrows shallow, ridges blocky; wood yellowish white, hard.

Twigs:

Dark gray, rigid, rusty-tomentose; leaf scars crescent-shaped, often concealed by hairs; sap milky; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .08 to .12 inch, apex obtuse, scales densely pubescent.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules absent; petiole .08 to .55 inch, glabrate or sparsely hairy to villous; blade oblong to oblanceolate or spatulate, 2 to 4 inches long, .3 to 1.6 inches wide, base truncate to attenuate, margins entire, apex rounded or obtuse to acute, lower surface light green, densely to sparsely villous with gray or nearly white hairs, upper surface dark green, glossy, sparsely to densely villous along midrib.

Flowers:

Inflorescences axillary, on branches or short lateral branches of older wood, clusters, 7-30-flowered; peduncles absent; pedicels .08 to .35 inch, glabrate or villous. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; sepals (4-)5, distinct, elliptic to ovate, .07 to .12 inch, lanate to glabrate; petals (4-)5(-6), connate proximally, corolla lobes white, .03 to .08 inch, oblong to lanceolate or ovate; stamens 5(-6), staminodes 5(-6); pistil 1; style .04 to .06 inch; stigma 1, capitate.

Fruit:

October-November; berries, purplish black, obovoid to ellipsoid, .3 to .5 inch long, .3 to .35 inch wide, becoming glabrous with age; seed 1, brown, obovoid, .28 to .35 inch long, .18 to .22 inch wide, smooth, glossy.

Habitat:

Upland woodlands, hillsides, bluffs, stream banks.

Distribution:

Southeast quarter and Comanche and Barber Counties

Origin:

Native

Uses:

The Kiowa tribe used latex from the outer bark as a sort of chewing gum.

Comments:

Sideroxylon lanuginosum is highly morphologically variable across its range.

Woolly buckthorn flowers