Taxonomy
Family: Rosaceae
Habitat
Floodplains, meadows, fields, woodland borders, thickets.
Associates
Distribution
Newfoundland, Quebec, and New England to SC and GA, west to MN, IA, and OK.
Morphology
Small tree to 10 m; twigs glabrous, usually with thorns 4-6 cm; leaves thick, firm, with impressed veins above, dull, glabrous or short-hairy on one or both surfaces, the floral ones mostly obovate, 2.5-6 cm long and 1.5-4.5 cm wide, unlobed or only obscurely and shallowly lobed, the vegetative ones much larger, sometimes more rhombic or suborbicular, and often more or less lobed; flowers 1-2 cm wide, in villous or glabrous compound cymes; sepals lanceolate or lance-linear, entire or obscurely glandular-serrate; stamens 12-20; fruit 8-15 mm thick, dull or sometimes bright red to yellow; nutlets 3-5.
Notes
Flowers mid April to late May
Wetland indicator: NA
The name apparently refers to the glandular dots on the fruit, though sources do not seem to indicate that this feature is diagnostic.
References
Gleason, Henry A.
and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States
and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY
Michael Hough © 2018 |