Foothills, montane. Streamsides. Spring.
Near Yellowjacket Canyon, June 12, 2004.

Buffaloberry likes moist areas near rivers at lower elevations and it often forms massive thickets, very visible because of the silvery-gray leaves. These leaves and the thorny stems commonly cause it to be mistaken for a young Russian Olive. Buffaloberry grows to 15 feet; Russian Olive to 50. Buffaloberry has bright red or gold fruit (the ripening green fruit is pictured at left); Russian Olives have buff olive-like fruit. Buffaloberry has opposite branching twigs and leaves; Russian Olive, alternate.  Both make thickets; Buffaloberry’s is denser because of numerous root shoots. Both plants produce innumerable berries.  See the darker green all along the branches in the picture at left and the ripening red in the fourth picture.

The genus name honors British botanist, John Shepherd, the first Curator of the Liverpool Botanic Garden, and the specific epithet is from the Latin, "argenta", "silvery" for the silvery-green leaves.  The genus was named by Thomas Nuttall in 1818 and he also named this species (changing the original name, Hippophae argentea, given by Frederick Pursh).  Shepherdia argentea was first collected for science by Meriwether Lewis in 1804 where the Niobrara River meets the Missouri River. (More biographical information.)

Foothills, montane. Streamsides. Spring.
Near Yellowjacket Canyon, April 7, 2006.

Tiny yellow flowers cluster by the hundreds along stems making a very showy early spring.  Bees and other pollen-gathering insects fill the air with buzzing.

Foothills, montane. Streamsides. Spring.
Near Yellowjacket Canyon, July 8, 2006.

Buffaloberry's fruit is sweet if given enough time to ripen bright red, but  Robins, Sparrows, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Grosbeaks, and many other birds usually eat the fruit when it is yellow or light orange in July and early August, weeks before humans would call it sweet and palatable.  In the drought summer of 2006, the berries ripened early.

Foothills, montane. Streamsides. Spring.
Near Yellowjacket Canyon, March 1, 2007.

Buffaloberry main stems can grow quite stout; this one is three inches in diameter.