Soapberry

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Soapberry flowers

Soapberry fruit

Soapberry leaves

Soapberry

Soapberry fruit in early spring

Soapberry fruit in winter

Soapberry flowers

Soapberry fruit in early spring

Soapberry inflorescence

Soapberry bark

Soapberry bud

Morphology

Trunk

Erect; bark grayish brown, fissures shallow, ridges short, sometimes thin plates; wood yellowish brown, hard.

Twigs

Grayish brown, brittle, pubescent; leaf scars crescent-shaped to half-round; buds brown, ovoid, .08 to .1 inch, apex obtuse, scales sparsely to densely pubescent.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, even-pinnately compound, 8 to 14 inches long; petiole 1.6 to 2 inches, glabrate or minutely pubescent to pubescent; leaflets (8-)12-20, alternate, elliptic-lanceolate to lanceolate, sickle-shaped, 1.6 to 3.6 inches long, .8 to 1.2 inch wide, base rounded to truncate, asymmetric, margins entire, apex acuminate, lower surface green, minutely pubescent to pubescent along main veins, upper surface green, glabrous or main vein sometimes minutely pubescent to pubescent.

Flowers

Inflorescences terminal on new growth, panicles, 10-50-flowered, pyramidal, 6 to 8 inches long, 6 to 8 inches wide; peduncles .8 to 2.8 inches long, densely covered with minute pubescence. Flowers unisexual, radially symmetric; sepals (4-)5, connate basally, lobes yellowish green, broadly ovate, .04 to .08 inch; petals (4-)5, distinct, white, .1 to .16 inch; staminate: stamens (7-)8-10, .16 to .2 inch; pistillate: pistil 1; style 1; stigma shallowly 3-lobed.

Fruit

September-October; berries, yellowish, translucent, spherical, .5 to .6 inch diameter, usually becoming wrinkled; seed 1, black, obovoid, .3 to .35 inch long, .25 to .3 inch wide, somewhat glossy, minutely pitted.

Ecology

Habitat

Stream banks, rocky slopes, woodlands, prairie ravines, waste places.

Distribution

Scattered throughout Kansas

Additional Notes

Synonyms

Alternative scientific names that have been used for this plant.