Shepherdia

---

title: "Shepherdia" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["shepherdia", "rosales-genera", "dioecious-plants", "flora-of-northern-america", "taxa-described-in-1818", "taxa-named-by-thomas-nuttall"] description: "Family of shrubs" topic_path: "general/shepherdia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherdia" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Family of shrubs ::

| image = SilverBuffaloberrySK-3.jpg | image_caption = Shepherdia argentea | taxon = Shepherdia | authority = Nutt. | subdivision_ranks = Species | subdivision = See text | range_map = | range_map_caption = | synonyms =

• Lepargyrea Raf.
• Leptargyreia Schltdl.

Shepherdia, commonly called buffaloberry or bullberry, is a genus of small shrubs in the Elaeagnaceae family. The plants are native to northern and western North America. They are non-legume nitrogen fixers.

Shepherdia is dioecious, with male and female flowers produced on separate plants.

Species

The genus has three living species:

• Shepherdia argentea - silver buffaloberry
• Shepherdia canadensis - Canada buffaloberry
• Shepherdia rotundifolia - roundleaf buffaloberry, endemic to southern Utah and northern Arizona

An additional extinct species is also placed in the genus:

• †Shepherdia weaveri (Hollick) LaMotte - Paleocene/Eocene Kachemak Bay, Alaska

Fruit

The berry is recognizable by being a dark shade of red, with little white dots on them. They are rough to the touch, and are found on both trees and shrubs.

Wildlife

The plants have rather bitter-tasting berries. The fruit are often eaten by bears to maintain fat stores during hibernation.{{cite book |last= Elias, Professor |first=Thomas S. |others=Peter A. Dykeman |title=Edible Wild Plants A North American Field Guide |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6a8MAgAACAAJ&q=edible+wild+plants+a+north+american+field+guide |format=Digitized online by Google books |accessdate=2009-01-25 |year= 1983 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=0-442-22254-8 |pages=9–28, 258

Buffaloberries are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, including Ectropis crepuscularia (recorded from S. canadensis) and Coleophora elaeagnisella.

As food

Buffaloberries are sour and can be made into jam, pie, jelly, syrup, soups, or prepared like cranberry sauce with sugar added.

References

References

1. {{PLANTS
2. "Shepherdia Nutt.". [[USDA]] PLANTS.
3. Renner, Susanne S.. (2014). "The relative and absolute frequencies of angiosperm sexual systems: dioecy, monoecy, gynodioecy, and an updated online database". American Journal of Botany.
4. "Silver buffaloberry".
5. (1952). "Catalogue of the Cenozoic plants of North America through 1950". [[Geological Society of America]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::