Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Chapter 32: Drupaceæ Plum Family

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About This Book

A concise field manual that surveys the alpine and subalpine plants encountered along the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirks accessible by the trans-mountain railway, emphasizing distinct regional assemblages and plant adaptations to differences in moisture and exposure. Species are arranged by botanical families with general keys to families and genera; treatments include ferns, conifers, shrubs and the majority of herbaceous flowering plants while excluding grasses, sedges, and willows. Descriptions are accompanied by plates, watercolour illustrations and photographs, and the text relates local taxa to comparable mountain floras while noting characteristic species, habitats and elevational ranges.

Drupaceæ
Plum Family

Trees or shrubs, the bark exuding gum. Leaves alternate, petioled, serrate, the teeth and petiole often glandular; flowers regular, perfect; calyx 5-lobed inferior, deciduous; petals 5, inserted on the calyx; stamens numerous, inserted on the petals; fruit a 1-seeded drupe.

Prunus demissa (Nutt.) Walp. Western Wild Cherry.

A shrub or small tree. Leaves thick ovate or broadly oval, acute or slightly obtuse, serrulate with short teeth. Flowers ¼ of an inch or more broad, in drooping racemes at the ends of the leafy branches; drupe dark purple or black, globose, over ¼ of an inch in diameter.

In thickets in the Rockies, frequent in the vicinity of Banff; flowering in May and early June.