Sideroxylon lycioides L.

Buckthorn Bully; Buckthorn Bumelia

Tree

Perennial

Vascular

Buckthorn Bully is a native deciduous shrub or small tree in the Sapodilla family (Sapotaceae). It is native to the southeastern and central United States from Texas to Illinois and Delaware southwards. In Alabama it is found throughout the state, often in areas with calcareous soils. It occurs along streams, along fence lines, around the edges of pastures and glades, and on floodplains. Buckthorn Bully is a small tree or large shrub up to 30 feet in height. Young twigs are green in color, glabrous, and sometimes armed with short stout spines at the nodes. The bark is gray to reddish brown and scaly on older stems and the trunk. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, elliptic to ovate or oblanceolate in outline, with entire margins. The leaves are glabrous or glabrate on the surface with prominent venation and the midrib is pubescent with white hairs. The leaves are deciduous and turn pale yellow before falling. Flowers are produced in hemispherical clusters of 7-40 individual flowers in the leaf-axils. Individual flowers are inconspicuous with 5 white to yellowish or greenish petals and 5 stamens. The fruit is a black, leathery berry. It contains 1-2 brownish seed. The fruit are consumed by birds and small mammals. Buckthorn Bully is sometimes cultivated. It prefers a sunny location and grows well in heavy clay soils.—A. Diamond.

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Native FACW (NWPL)

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