General: Shrub to small tree, 1-5 (10) m tall, sometimes thicket-forming; bark reddish-brown, peeling in horizontal strips, with prominent lenticels.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, lanceolate to narrowly egg-shaped or elliptic, 3-8 (10) cm long, finely saw-toothed, gradually tapering to long point at tip, rounded to pointed at the base, smooth; leaf stalks (5) 10-20 mm long, with 1 or 2 small glands near the top.
Flowers: Inflorescences short, half-rounded to nearly flat-topped, umbel-like clusters, at the ends of short spur-shoots, of 4 to 12 stalked flowers; corollas white, saucer-shaped, the petals 5, egg-shaped, about 6 mm long, usually long-hairy on the back near the base; calyces smooth, 5-lobed, the lance-oblong lobes 2-3 mm long; ovaries superior; stamens about 30.
Fruits: Fleshy, large-stoned drupes (cherries), ellipsoid to globe-shaped, 4-8 mm long, bright red; seeds 1.
Dry to moist, open forests, thickets, rocky slopes, sandy or gravelly benches and clearings in the steppe and montane zones; frequent in BC south of 56degreeN, east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; E to NF and S to VA and CO.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
