Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Lanceleaf buckthorn

LANCELEAF BUCKTHORN

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Rhamnus lanceolata Pursh

Riley County, Kansas

Height: Shrubs, to 10 (-20) feet

Family: Rhamnaceae - Buckthorn Family

Flowering Period:

Trunks:

Stems ascending to erect; branches unarmed; bark gray, sometimes with light blotches, smooth or eventually somewhat flaky; wood light reddish brown, more or less hard.

Twigs:

Grayish brown to grayish green, flexible, smooth but with epidermis exfoliating in small grayish strips of flakes, glabrous; leaf scars crescent-shaped; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .1 to 1.4 inch, apex obtuse to acute, scales usually ciliate.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules caducous, oblong, .1 to 1.2 inch; petiole .8 to .4 inch; blade lanceolate to elliptic or oblong-lanceolate, 1.2 to 3.2 inches long, .8 to 1.2 inch wide, base truncate or cuneate, margins finely crenulate-serrulate or serrulate, apex acute to acuminate, lower surface light green, pubescent along midrib, upper surface green, glabrous.

Flowers:

Axillary on short shoots from previous year, fascicles, 2-4-flowered or flowers solitary; peduncles absent; pedicels .04 to .12 inch, glabrous. Flowersunisexual, rarely some bisexual, radially symmetric; hypanthium bell-shaped, .08 to .12 inch; sepals 4, distinct, green, triangular, .06 to .08 inch; petals 4, distinct, yellow or yellowish green, triangular, .04 to .06 inch; staminate: stamens 4, to .06 inch; pistillate: pistil 1, ovary superior, 2-locular; styles 2, connate proximally; stigmas capitate.

Fruit:

July-August; drupes, dark blue to black, globose to nearly spherical, .2 to .3 inch diam.; stones 2, light brown, obovoid, ca. .18 inch long, deeply grooved upper surface, smooth; seed 1.

Habitat:

Rocky wooded hillsides, rocky tallgrass prairie slopes, ravines, often calcareous substrates.

Distribution:

East 1/2 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Lanceleaf buckthorn leaves