Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

SUGARBERRY

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Celtis laevigata Willd.

Riley County, Kansas

Height: Trees, to 68 feet

Family: Cannabaceae - Hemp Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Also Called:

Southern hackberry.

Trunks:

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.

Habitat:

Floodplain forests, stream banks, rocky slopes in valleys.

Distribution:

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

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Three varieties of Celtis laevigata have been described; all have been attributed to Kansas in the literature or on the basis of specimens. Characteristics that distinguish those varieties appear to intergrade in eastern Kansas.

Sugarberry leaves