Narrative

Soopalallie or Canadian buffalo-berry (Lepargyraea canadensis to Elaeagnus canadensis to Shepherdia canadensis) is found from Newfoundland to Alaska and south to Maine, New York, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. This thornless shrub is normally less than eight feet tall. The small 1-1.5 inch leaves are ovate or oval and obtuse at the apex. The leaves are hairy above and densely hairy below. The hairs are usually silver, but some may be brown. The yellow flowers are in short spikes at the twig nodes.

The yellow color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is widespread, but not common.

This lifeform is widespread in North America.

Shepherdia genus is native to North America. There are three species of shrubs in this genus. The leaves are opposite and petioled. The leaves and twigs are silvery-scurfy or stellate-pubescent.

Oleaster Family (Elaeagnaceae) contains approximately forty-five species of bushes and trees found in the Northern Hemisphere. There are ten species arranged in three genera growing in greater North America.

Myrtiflorae Order is an assemblage of over twenty different families.

Dicots (Dicotyledoneae Class) are the predominant group of vascular plants on earth. With the exception of the grasses (Monocots) and the Conifers (Gymnosperms), most of the larger plants that one encounters are Dicots. Dicots are characterized by having a seed with two outer shell coverings.

Some of the more primitive Dicots are the typical hardwood trees (oaks, birches, hickories, etc). The more advanced Dicots include many of the Composite (Aster) Family flowers like the Dandelion, Aster, Thistles, and Sunflowers. Although many Monocots reach a very high degree of specialization, most botanists feel that the Dicots represent the most advanced group of plants.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.