Deciduous shrubs or small trees, often spiny, with glistening fringed silvery or red-brown peltate scales. Twigs subterete, slender; pith small, round, continuous. Buds rather small, solitary or multiple, stalked, oblongs with 2 or 4 valvate scales. Leaf-scars opposite, half-round, minute, slightly raised; bundle-trace 1; stipule-scars lacking.

1. S. canadensis L. Soapberry. Shrub 0.3-2 m. high; twigs with red-brown scurf. Rocky limestone slopes, Newfoundland to Alaska, south to New York, Ohio, Minnesota, South Dakota and New Mexico.

2. S. argentea Nutt. Buffalo-berry. Shrub 1-6 m.high, somewhat thorny; twigs silvery-scurfy. Banks of streams, Manitoba to Alberta, south to Iowa, Kansas and New Mexico (Fig. 226).

Fig. 226. Shepherdia argentea.