Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Aronia arbutifolia (L.) Elliott
- Family: Rose (Rosaceae)
- Flowering: April-July
- Field Marks: This chokeberry is recognized by its leaves that are glandular along the midvein on the upper surface and that are soft-hairy on the lower surface. The fruit is red, and the sepals are glandular-hairy.
- Habitat: Swamps, low woods, pine barrens, damp thickets.
- Habit: Shrub up to 12 feet tall, spreading by basal offshoots, usually forming colonies; bark nearly black, smooth.
- Stems: Twigs reddish, gray- or white-hairy, slender; buds oblongoid, tapering to a sharp point, up to 1/4 inch long, reddish, hairy.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, oblanceolate to oblong to obovate, short-pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, glandular-toothed, the upper surface green and smooth except for the glands along the midvein, the lower surface gray or white, soft-hairy, up to 4 inches long, up to 2 inches wide; leaf stalks up to 1/2 inch long, hairy.
- Flowers: Several in a terminal cyme, the cyme up to 3 inches across; each flower white or pink- or purple-tinged, up to 1/2 inch across, on slender, hairy stalks.
- Sepals: 5, green, united below to form a cup, glandular-hairy.
- Petals: 5, white or pink- or purple-tinged, free from each other, up to 1/4 inch long.
- Stamens: Numerous.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior; styles 2-5.
- Fruits: Pomes red, nearly spherical to obovoid, up to 1/3 inch in diameter.
- Notes: The fruits are eaten by birds and other animals.
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