Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

BLACK HAW

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Viburnum prunifolium L.

Photo by Craig Freeman

Height: Shrubs or trees, to 16 (32) feet

Family: Adoxaceae - Moschatel Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Also Called:

Sweet haw.

Trunks:

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.

Habitat:

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

Distribution:

East 1/6 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

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).

Black haw leaf