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Shepherdia canadensis Elaeagnaceae
Russet Buffaloberry, Canadian Buffaloberry, shef-HAIR-dee-a can-a-DEN-sis
Soapberry, Soopalollie, Foamberry
- Deciduous shrub, sprawling to erect, to 6(13) ft [1.8(3.9] m] tall, young branches rusty and scruffy. Leaves opposite, simple, ovate to oblong-ovate, 3-7 cm long, 1-3 cm wide, green to silvery above, white with rusty dots below, petiole to 6 mm. Usually dioecious (male and female plants), flowers are yellowish-brown, inconspicuous, 1-2 mm long, in small clusters before leaves appear. Fruit elliptic, 6-8 mm long, reddish, but sometimes yellow, translucent, very bitter, soapy to the touch.
- Sun to part shade.
- Hardy to USDA Zone 2 Widely distributed, its most northerly native range is within the Arctic Circle, and from Alaska it extends east across northern Canada to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and southwest across Maine to western New York and northern Ohio, west to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Its range also extends south from Alaska, generally following the Rocky Mountains south to Arizona and New Mexico, found on the eastside of the Cascade; generally excluded from the Great Basin.
- canadensis: of Canada.
- Dallas, Oregon: Delbert Hunter Arboretum