2. Symphoricarpos occidentalis Hook. (wolfberry, western snowberry)

Map 1432, Pl. 336 g

Plants shrubs 0.3–1.0 m tall. Bark gray to grayish brown, thin, tending to become shredded. Petioles 3–7 mm long. Leaf blades 2–4 cm long, 12–25 mm wide, oblong-elliptic to broadly ovate, broadly rounded or broadly angled to nearly truncate at the base, rounded or angled to a bluntly pointed tip (those of the lobed first leaves of the season sometimes appearing sharply pointed), the upper surface bright green to dark green, the undersurface pale green, short-hairy, at least along the veins, usually not glaucous. Flowers sessile, appearing in clusters or more commonly in short spikes. Corollas 5–9 mm long, lobed about 1/2 of the way to the base, pale pink or occasionally greenish white. Stamens with the anthers 1.8–2.2 mm long, exserted from the corolla. Styles glabrous. Fruits 5–9 mm in diameter, white or greenish white. Nutlets 3.0–3.5 mm long, elliptic in outline, rounded to bluntly pointed at each end. June–August.

Uncommon, northwesternmost Missouri (Michigan to Missouri west to Washington and New Mexico; Canada; introduced elsewhere in the U.S.). Mesic upland forests and margins of loess hill prairies.

Steyermark (1963) mapped a presumably nonnative occurrence of this species from Adair County, but this could not be confirmed during the present study. The species is cultivated as an ornamental and border plant and in some western states has been planted for erosion control (Kurz, 1997). In S. occidentalis the first leaves produced by elongating twigs each season frequently are bluntly toothed to lobed, a feature usually not found in the more commonly encountered S. orbiculatus.