Prunus fasciculata

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Prunus fasciculata
Prunus fasciculata 4.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Prunus
Subgenus: Prunus subg. Prunus
Section: Prunus sect. Emplectocladus
Species:
P. fasciculata
Binomial name
Prunus fasciculata
Synonyms [1]
  • Emplectocladus fasciculataTorr.
  • Amygdalus fasciculata(Torr.) Greene

Prunus fasciculata, also known as wild almond, desert almond, or desert peach [2] is a spiny and woody shrub producing wild almonds, which is native to western deserts of North America.

Contents

Description

Prunus fasciculata grows up to 2 metres (6+1⁄2 feet) high, exceptionally to 3 metres (10 ft), with many horizontal (divaricate) branches, generally with thorns (spinescent), often in thickets. The bark is gray and without hairs (glabrous). [3]

This male has flowers with 10-15 stamens that are clustered with leaves in fascicles. Prunus fasciculata 8.jpg
This male has flowers with 10–15 stamens that are clustered with leaves in fascicles.
Branches with smooth gray bark bear clusters of narrow leaves and small flowers. Prunus fasciculata 7792.JPG
Branches with smooth gray bark bear clusters of narrow leaves and small flowers.

The leaves are 5–20 millimetres (1⁄4–3⁄4 inch) long, narrow (linear), with a broad, flatten tip that tapers to a narrow base, (spatulate, oblanceolate), arranged on very short leaf stem (petiole) like bundles of needles (fascicles). Sepals are hairless and without lobes or teeth. The flowers are small and white with 3-mm petals, occurring either solitary or in fascicles and are without a petal stem (subsessile) growing from the leaf axils. They are dioecious. Male flowers have 10–15 stamens; female, one or more pistils. The plant displays numerous fragrant flowers from March to May, which attract the bees that pollinate it. The drupe is about 1 centimetre (1⁄2 in) long, ovoid, light brown and pubescent with thin flesh. [3] [4] [5]

The species lives many years (is perennial), and drops its leaves (deciduous). [6] [7] [8]

Taxonomy

The plant was first classified as Emplectocladus fasciculata in an 1853 paper by John Torrey based on a collection of the plants of California acquired during the third expedition of John C. Fremont in 1845; [9] whence the synonym Emplectocladus fasciculata (Torr.) [10] The work was illustrated by Isaac Sprague. Torrey devised the genus Empectocladus to comprise a few desert shrubs. According to Silas C. Mason [11] the genus has

... a top so densely branched, angled and interlocked as to well merit the name Emplectocladus (Greek, "woven branch"), signifying interlocked branches ...

According to George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker [12] the name fasciculata means that the leaves are in fascicles, or little bundles:

Leaves small, spatulate, as it were of precious stones, subglobose fasciculate [13]

However, Asa Gray publishing in 1874 reclassified Empectocladus to Prunus resulting in the designation Prunus fasciculata (Torr.) A. Gray (subg. Emplectocladus), in which the desert shrubs become a subgenus. [14] In 1996 Jepson [8] defined a California variety with smooth leaves, punctata, in comparison to which Gray's species, with pubescent leaves, becomes the variety, fasciculata. Unfortunately, the binomial Prunus punctata was already used in 1878 to describe what is now known to be Prunus phaeosticta . [15] Prunus fasciculata punctata grows in the coastal ranges as well as in the desert. [3] [16] [17]

Palaeobotanical evidence

Middens from rodent activities such as those of the pack rat are a rich source of plant macrofossils from late Pleistocene habitats. At Point of Rocks in Nevada by 11,700 BP, desert shrubs such as desert almond had replaced Juniper and Joshua trees, indicating the onset of the modern desert. [18] Somewhat earlier, 17,000–14,000 BP, desert almond flourished in a mixed desert and woodland ecology on the Colorado Plateau. [19]

Distribution and habitat

The species is native to the deserts of Arizona, California, Baja California, Nevada, and Utah. [20] [6] [21] [22] [23] It prefers sandy or rocky soil on dry slopes and washes, usually below 7,000 feet (2,100 m) elevation. [20]

Uses

The plant is not cultivated. Some Native Americans in its limited range learned traditional ways of using it: the Cahuilla prepared the drupe as a delicacy. The wild almonds were considered a delicacy by Native Americans. The Kawaiisu found the tough twigs useful as drills in starting fires and as the front portion of arrow shafts. [24] The seed contains too much cyanide to be edible, although there is some archaeological evidence that the ancient population of the Mojave Desert pounded the seeds into flour and leached it to make it edible. [25]

Related Research Articles

<i>Prunus</i> Genus of trees and shrubs

Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs in the flowering plant family Rosaceae that includes plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, being native to the North American temperate regions, the neotropics of South America, and temperate and tropical regions of Eurasia and Africa, There are about 340 accepted species as of March 2024. Many members of the genus are widely cultivated for their fruit and for decorative purposes. Prunus fruit are drupes, or stone fruits. The fleshy mesocarp surrounding the endocarp is edible while the endocarp itself forms a hard, inedible shell called the pyrena. This shell encloses the seed, which is edible in some species, but poisonous in many others. Besides being eaten off the hand, most Prunus fruit are also commonly used in processing, such as jam production, canning, drying, and the seeds for roasting.

<i>Prunus virginiana</i> Species of plant

Prunus virginiana, commonly called bitter-berry, chokecherry, Virginia bird cherry, and western chokecherry, is a species of bird cherry native to North America.

<i>Rubus leucodermis</i> Species of plant

Rubus leucodermis, also called whitebark raspberry, blackcap raspberry, or blue raspberry, is a species of Rubus native to western North America.

<i>Baileya</i> (plant) Genus of flowering plants

Baileya is a genus of plants in the aster family Asteraceae. All are native to the southwestern United States and to Mexico.

<i>Prunus andersonii</i> Species of shrub

Prunus andersonii is a species of shrub in the rose family, part of the same genus as the peach, cherry, and almond. Its common names include desert peach and desert almond. It is native to eastern California and western Nevada, where it grows in forests and scrub in desert and mountains. It was named after Charles Lewis Anderson by Asa Gray.

<i>Prunus emarginata</i> Species of tree

Prunus emarginata, the bitter cherry or Oregon cherry, is a species of Prunus native to western North America, from British Columbia south to Baja California, and east as far as western Wyoming and New Mexico. It is often found in recently disturbed areas or open woods on nutrient-rich soil.

<i>Cercocarpus ledifolius</i> Species of tree

Cercocarpus ledifolius is a North American species of mountain mahogany known by the common name curl-leaf mountain mahogany.

<i>Prunus ilicifolia</i> Species of tree

Prunus ilicifolia is native to the chaparral areas of coastal California, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. as well as the desert chaparral areas of the Mojave desert.

<i>Prunus subcordata</i> Species of tree

Prunus subcordata, known by the common names Klamath plum, Oregon plum, Pacific plum and Sierra plum, is a member of the genus Prunus, native to the western United States, especially California and Oregon.

<i>Amphipappus</i> Genus of flowering plants

Amphipappus is a North American genus in the family Asteraceae. It is native to desert regions of the southwestern United States, in southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, and southeastern Utah.

<i>Prunus fremontii</i> Species of tree

Prunus fremontii is a North American species of plants in the rose family, known by the common name desert apricot. It takes its scientific name from John C. Frémont. It is found in northern and western Baja California especially, mostly Pacific and western, and the adjacent area of southern California. It also occurs in northern Baja California Sur.

<i>Berberis fremontii</i> Berry and plant

Berberis fremontii is a species of barberry known by the common name Frémont's mahonia.

<i>Ziziphus obtusifolia</i> Species of tree

Ziziphus obtusifolia is a species of flowering plant in the buckthorn family known by several common names, including lotebush, graythorn, gumdrop tree, and Texas buckthorn.

<i>Pseudoziziphus parryi</i> Species of flowering plant

Pseudoziziphus parryi, synonym Ziziphus parryi, is a species of flowering plant in the buckthorn family known by the common names Parry's jujube, California crucillo, Parry Abrojo, and lotebush.

Prunus eremophila, also known by its common name Mojave Desert plum, is a rare species of plum native to California.

<i>Baccharis salicina</i> Species of flowering plant

Baccharis salicina is a species of plant in the family Asteraceae. Common names include willow baccharis, and Great Plains false willow. It is a shrub found in North America where it grows in mildly saline areas.

<i>Prunus <span style="font-style:normal;">subg.</span> Prunus</i> Subgenus of plants

Prunus subg. Prunus is a subgenus of Prunus. This subgenus includes plums, apricots and bush cherries. Some species conventionally included in Prunus subg. Amygdalus are clustered with plum/apricot species according to molecular phylogenetic studies. Shi et al. (2013) has incorporated subg. Amygdalus into subg. Prunus, thereby including almonds and peaches in this subgenus. The species in this subgenus have solitary flowers or 2–3 in a fascicle.

<i>Ambrosia salsola</i> Species of flowering plant

Ambrosia salsola, commonly called cheesebush, winged ragweed, burrobush, white burrobrush, and desert pearl, is a species of perennial shrub in the family Asteraceae native to deserts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.

<i>Ambrosia monogyra</i> Species of flowering plant

Ambrosia monogyra is a species of flowering plant in the sunflower family commonly known as the singlewhorl burrobrush, leafy burrobush, slender burrobush, and desert fragrance. Ambrosia monogyra is native to North America and is typically found in canyons, desert washes, and ravines throughout arid parts of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. This species has green, threadlike leaves that emit a distinctive odor when crushed, and flowers from August to November. The fruits have distinctive wings in their middle that aid in dispersion through wind and water.

Prunus dictyoneura is a species of bush cherry found in Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Ningxia, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces of China. A shrub 0.3 to 1.0  m tall, it prefers to grow in thickets in grasslands on hillsides from 400 to 1600  m above sea level. Chloroplast DNA sequencing has shown that its closest relative is Prunus humilis, at least as far as chloroplasts are concerned.

References

  1. ↑ Tropicos, Prunus fasciculata (Torr.) A. Gray
  2. ↑ Bailey, L.H., Bailey, E.Z., and the staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium. 1976. Hortus third: A concise dictionary of plants cultivated in the United States and Canada. Macmillan, New York.
  3. 1 2 3 "Prunus fasciculata". in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium; University of California, Berkeley. 2018. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
  4. ↑ Geological Survey of California (1880). Botany of California: Volume I: 2nd (Revised) Edition. Little, Brown, and Company. p. 168.
  5. ↑ Rydberg, Per Axel (1917). Flora of the Rocky Mountains and Adjacent Plains: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Neighboring Parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and British Columbia. New York: Published by the Author. p.  452.
  6. 1 2 "Prunus fasciculata". Germplasm Resources Information Network . Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture . Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  7. ↑ "Emplectocladus fasciculata". Germplasm Resources Information Network . Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture . Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  8. 1 2 Jepson, Willis Linn (1936). A Flora of California, Volume 2. Berkeley: University of California. pp. 229–230.
  9. ↑ This famous expedition combined scientific and military operations, merging into the war with Mexico of 1848 and the acquisition of California for the United States. Fremont's mandate had been to explore Oregon. He followed secret orders to establish a presence in California. Apparently he did accomplish both scientific and military objectives (but not in Oregon) and the pre-publication in Torrey's paper of his remaining plant specimens (some had been lost on the Missouri) helped him during his later prosecutions for insubordination.
  10. ↑ Torrey, John (1854). "Plantae Fremontianae; or Descriptions of Plants Collected by Col. J. C. Fremont, in California". Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge Volume 6 Paper 1. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. The contents of this volume are stated in The American Catalogue of Books (1856). London: Sampson Low, Son & Co. 1856. p.  59. The paper, however, had already been published independently in April, 1853, according to Karslake, Frank (1971). Book-Auction Records. London, New York and Edinburgh: Dawsons of Pall Mall. p. 1050.
  11. ↑ Mason, Silas C. (1911). "U. S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Plant Industry-Bulletin Nos. 192 to 197 Inclusive 1910-1911: Drought Resistance of the Olive in the Southwestern States". Bulletins of the Bureau of Plant Industry Nos. 192 to 197 Inclusive 1910-1911. Vol. XXV. Washington: Government Printing Office. p. 24.
  12. ↑ Bentham, George; Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1865). Genera plantarum ad exemplaria imprimis in herbariis kewensibus servata definita Volume I Part II. London: Lovell Reeve & Co. p. 614.
  13. ↑ "Folia minuta, spathulata, e gemmis subglobosis quasi fasciculata ...."
  14. ↑ "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1874)". 10:70.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ↑ The Flora of British India 2(5): 317. 1878.
  16. ↑ "ITIS Report".
  17. ↑ Stuart, John David; Sawyer, John O. (2001). Trees and Shrubs of California. University of California Press. p. 305. ISBN   978-0-520-22109-3.
  18. ↑ Sauer, Jonathan Deininger (1988). Plant Migration: the dynamics of geographic patterning in seed plant species . University of California Press. p.  168. ISBN   978-0-520-06871-1.
  19. ↑ Anderson, R. Scott; Betancourt, Julio L.; Mead, Jim I.; Hevly, Richard H.; Adam, David P. (2000). "Middle- and late-Wisconsin paleobotanic and paleoclimatic records from the southern Colorado Plateau, USA". Palaeo. 155 (1–2): 45. Bibcode:2000PPP...155...31A. doi:10.1016/s0031-0182(99)00093-0. The article is available as a .pdf file at .
  20. 1 2 Sullivan, Steven. K. (2018). "Prunus fasciculata". Wildflower Search. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
  21. ↑ Biota of North America Program 2014 county distribution map
  22. ↑ SEINet, Southwestern Biodiversity, Arizona chapter photos, distribution map
  23. ↑ Calflora taxon report, University of California, Prunus fasciculata (Torrey) A. Gray, 1874. Desert almond
  24. ↑ Moerman, Daniel E. (1998). Native American Ethnobotany. Portland, Cambridge: Timber Press. p. 442. ISBN   978-0-88192-453-4.
  25. ↑ Bond, Elaine Miller (Summer 2000). "Reading between the rocks: Exploring the connection between land and humans in the Granite Mountains" (PDF). Transect. 18 (1): 23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-06-09. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
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