''Prunus eremophila'', also known by its common name Mojave Desert plum, is a rare species of

plum A plum is a fruit of some species in Prunus subg. Prunus, ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus'.'' Dried plums are often called prunes, though in the United States they may be labeled as 'dried plums', especially during the 21st century. Plums are ...

native to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Description

''Prunus eremophila'' is a bulky

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

with tangled, thorny branches. It can reach over in maximum height. The

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

leaves have toothed, pointed, oval blades up to long. They are lightly hairy in texture. It blooms in March to April. The flowers occur singly or in pairs, each bearing small white petals. Either the

stamens The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filamen ...

pistils Gynoecium (; ; : gynoecia) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl (botany), whorl of a flower; it consists ...

abort, leaving female or male flowers. The fruit is orange-rust or a yellowish, fuzzy

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pip'' (UK), ''pit'' (US), ''stone'', or ''pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed ...

up to wide, with a thin, dry pulp. The plant was described to science only in 2001 or 2002 and little is known about its ecology.The Nature Conservancy
/ref>

Distribution

The shrub is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

within northeastern

San Bernardino County, California San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is locat ...

, where it is known only from the Vontrigger Hills and Lanfair Valley of the eastern

Mojave National Preserve Mojave National Preserve is a United States National Preserve located in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, US, between Interstate 15 in California, Interstate 15 and Interstate 40. The preserve was established October 31, ...

. It occurs in desert scrub habitat.California Native Plant Society Rare Plant Profile
/ref>

Conservation

The plant occurs in the

, so is protected from some human activity, but is a

Critically Endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

species threatened by

off-road vehicle An off-road vehicle (ORV), also known as an off-highway vehicle (OHV), overland vehicle or adventure vehicle, is a type of transportation specifically engineered to navigate unpaved roads and surfaces. These include trails, forest roads, and ...

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

, and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

References

External links

Calflora Database: ''Prunus eremophila'' (Desert plum)

Jepson eFlora (TJM2) treatment of ''Prunus eremophila''

UC CalPhotos gallery: ''Prunus eremophila''
{{authority control eremophila Endemic flora of California Flora of the California desert regions Natural history of the Mojave Desert Lanfair Valley Mojave National Preserve Natural history of San Bernardino County, California Plants described in 2002 Critically endangered flora of California