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National Champion Silverberry Eleanus commutatta Sweetgrass County, Montana Circumference = 15 inches Height = 13 feet Average Crown Spread = 3 feet Total Points = 31 Nominated: July 2000 by: Martin Flanagan cloned:

The Silverberry is the North America's native olive, and occupies riparian habitats. While the Silverberry looks much like a small Russian Olive, it lacks thorns. It grows much like the chokecherry, and is ofen ranked as a shrub, but is truly a tree. Its greenish-yellow flowers are very frangrant. The rock-hard seeds were used as beads by native Americans. As the berry dries, it turns white (hence its name "silverberry"), and the meat turns to powder with a taste like flour. Berries stay on all winter long.

Identification

Size: 1 - 7 meters tall

Range: Welldrained, open sites; plains to montane; Alaska to Idaho and Montana

Leaves are alternate, egg- or lance-shaped, usually 2-6 cm long, silvery with dense, tiny, star-shaped hairs, sometimes also with brown scales beneath.

Flowers appear Yellow-green within, silvery without , funnel shaped, 12-16 mm long, with four spreading pointed lobes, in twos or threes from leaf axils, strong sweet-scented.

Fruit is silvery, dry, mealy, oval, about one centimeter long, drupe-like, with a single large nutlet. Light green throughout summer, turning white late fall and winter.

Bark is burnt sienna colored.

Twigs are

Buds are

Wood is

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TERRA: The Earth Restoration and Reforestation Alliance — www.championtrees.org — updated 8/14/2003