Ceanothus cuneatus |
Ceanothus herbaceus |
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buck brush, common buckbrush, narrow-leaf buckthorn, sedge-leaf buckthorn, wedgeleaf cuneatus |
céanothe á feuilles étroites, inland Jersey tea, Jersey tea, New Jersey tea, prairie redroot |
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Habit | Shrubs, 0.5–3.5 m. Stems erect, ascending, or spreading, not rooting at nodes; branchlets grayish brown to brown, rigid or flexible, glabrate, puberulent, or tomentulose, hairs straight. | Shrubs, deciduous, 0.6–1 m. Stems erect to ascending, not rooting at nodes; branchlets green, brown, or reddish, not thorn-tipped, round in cross section, flexible, ± appressed-puberulent or villosulous, glabrescent. | ||||||||||||
Leaves | usually both fascicled and not fascicled on same plant, rarely none fascicled; petiole 1–3 mm; blade flat to cupped, elliptic, oblanceolate, obovate, or orbiculate, 4–22(–30) × 3–12(–22) mm, base rounded, margins thick, not revolute, entire or denticulate distal to middle, teeth 0–9, apex obtuse, rounded, truncate, or retuse, abaxial surface pale green, glabrate or glabrous, adaxial surface green, glabrous. |
petiole 2–6(–10) mm; blade not aromatic, flat, usually elliptic to lanceolate, sometimes ovate or oblanceolate, (20–)25–70 × 10–30 mm, herbaceous, not resinous, base cuneate to rounded, margins serrate to serrulate, teeth (37–)45–71, apex acute to obtuse, abaxial surface pale green, glabrous or puberulent, especially on veins, adaxial surface dark green, dull, villosulous or glabrate; 3-veined from base. |
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Inflorescences | axillary or terminal, 0.8–2.5 cm. |
terminal, umbel-like, globose to hemispheric, 4–8 cm. |
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Flowers | sepals, petals, and nectary white to lavender or blue. |
sepals, petals, and nectary white. |
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Capsules | 4–6 mm wide, weakly lobed; valves smooth, horns subapical, prominent, erect, intermediate ridges absent. |
3–5 mm wide, lobed; valves smooth, usually not crested, sometimes weakly crested near apex. |
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Ceanothus cuneatus |
Ceanothus herbaceus |
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Phenology | Flowering Mar–Aug. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Open rocky areas or on sandy soils, slopes and bluffs in shrublands, prairies, forests. | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 10–1800 m. (0–5900 ft.) | |||||||||||||
Distribution |
CA; OR; nw Mexico
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AR; CO; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MI; MN; MO; MT; ND; NE; NH; NM; NY; OH; OK; SD; TN; TX; VA; VT; WI; WY; MB; ON; QC; Mexico (Coahuila)
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Discussion | Varieties 4 (4 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Ceanothus herbaceus is an older name than C. ovatus, which has been used widely in botanical and horticultural literature (G. K. Brizicky 1964c). Plants with persistently puberulent leaves occur principally east of the Mississippi River Valley and have been called var. pubescens, but the extent of intergradation occurs over a broad geographic area and deserves further study (N. C. Coile 1988). Putative hybrids between C. herbaceus and C. fendleri in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains were named C. ×subsericeus Rydberg. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 12, p. 99. | FNA vol. 12, p. 82. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Cerastes | Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > subg. Ceanothus | ||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Rhamnus cuneata | C. herbaceus var. pubescens, C. ovatus, C. ovatus var. pubescens | ||||||||||||
Name authority | (Hooker) Nuttall: in J. Torrey and A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 267. (1838) | Rafinesque: Med. Repos., hexade 2, 5: 360. (1808) | ||||||||||||
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