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; 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.

Foothills, montane, subalpine. Moist woodland hillsides. Spring.
Haviland Lake, June 8, 2007.

This Buffaloberry is fairly common at the bottom of hillsides in the mountains but its color is not as distinctive as Shepherdia argentea, shown above, and therefore it is not noticed very often.  It grows to about six feet tall, less than half the size of S. argentea.  All three Shepherdia shown on this page flower in very early spring and put on an abundance of berries.  

In 1753 Linnaeus named this species Hippophae canadensis; it was given its present name in 1818 by Thomas Nuttall. 

Foothills, montane, subalpine. Moist woodland hillsides. Spring.
Ryman Creek Trail, June 13, 2007.
Roaring Fork Road, August 16, 2007.

The top of S. canadensis leaves is distinctly different from the bottom.  Some authorities indicate that the upper surface is glabrous (smooth), but the photos at left and below indicate that at least some shrubs are densely hairy with gorgeous starburst (stellate) hairs.  The underside of leaves is covered with a cinnamon scale-like growth.  The shiny green of early spring leaf growth mellows to a darker green and eventually leaves darken even more and berries ripen red.

In 1875 Charles Parry named this species which was collected in 1873 by A. L. Siler in Utah.

At the side of the gravel road called the Moki Dugway, a four by four foot Buffaloberry sits eleven hundred feet above the San Juan River basin enjoying the view south into Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.