silver buffaloberry

Photo: SriMesh — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 2 through 7

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

⚠ Honestly: bitter and saponin-rich — an acquired taste, poor fresh.

Hardiness

Zone 2–7

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer

Mature size

Thorny suckering shrub 2–4 m tall and wide, occasionally a small tree to 6 m

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

5.5–8.5 (very wide; nitrogen-fixing)

Environment

Plains

Native range

The interior plains and foothills of western North America, from the Prairie Provinces south to California, New Mexico and Kansas — streambanks, coulees and dry gravelly ground, often where nothing else woody survives.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

Moderate

Spacing

250 cm (98 in) apart — about 6.3 m² (67 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Opposite, narrow and oblong 2–6 cm, and silver on both sides with a dense coat of scales — the argentea of the name. Opposite leaves separate Shepherdia from the alternate-leaved Elaeagnus at a glance.

Root system

Shallow, wide-spreading and strongly suckering, carrying nitrogen-fixing nodules formed with Frankia bacteria rather than the rhizobia of the pea family. That is what lets it colonise raw gravel, and it is why a single plant becomes a thicket — useful on a bank, a nuisance in a bed.

Fruit description

Translucent scarlet drupes 4–8 mm crowded along the thorny twigs, ripening in mid-summer. ⚠ Tart, and saponin-rich enough to foam when stirred and to taste soapy-bitter behind the sourness — an acquired taste raw, and better as jelly, syrup or a sauce for game, which is its traditional use.

Propagation

Seed after cold stratification; softwood cuttings root moderately; suckers lift readily and are the easiest route. Remember to raise both sexes — the plant is dioecious.

Pollination

DIOECIOUS — needs male and female plants

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.