Viburnum trilobum
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| Viburnum trilobum | ||||||||||||||
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| Viburnum trilobum Marshall |
Viburnum trilobum (American Cranberrybush Viburnum, American Cranberrybush or Highbush or High Bush Cranberry) is a species of Viburnum native to northern North America, from Newfoundland west to British Columbia, south to Washington state and east to northern Virginia, with an isolated population in New Mexico. It is very closely related to the European and Asian Viburnum opulus, and is often treated as a variety of it, as Viburnum opulus L. var. americanum Ait., or as a subspecies, Viburnum opulus subsp. trilobum (Marshall) Clausen.
It is a deciduous shrub growing to 4 m tall. The bark is gray and rough and has a scaly texture. The stems arch and are very dense, and the twigs are a reddish-brown color. The leaves are opposite, three-lobed, 6-12 cm long and 5-10 cm broad, with a rounded base and serrated margins; they are superficially similar to many maple leaves, most easily distinguished by their somewhat wrinkled surface with impressed leaf venation. The leaf buds are green. The bud scales are valvate. The flowers are white, produced in corymbs up to 13 cm diameter at the top of the stems; each corymb comprises a ring of outer sterile flowers 2-2.5 cm diameter with conspicuous petals, surrounding a center of small (5 mm), fertile flowers; the flowers are pollinated by insects. The fruit is an oblong red drupe 15 mm long and 12 mm broad, containing a single seed. It begins to produce fruit at approximately five years of age. The plant spreads through animals such as birds eat the fruits, including the seeds they contain, then deposit the seeds in another location in their droppings.
Although often called "Highbush Cranberry", it is not a cranberry. The name comes from the red edible fruits which look superficially like cranberries, and have a similar flavour and ripen at the same time of year[1].
