Plant · P-051

Silver Buffaloberry

Shepherdia argentea

Silver Buffaloberry is a nitrogen-fixing shrub that actually tolerates alkaline, limestone-heavy ground - a rare trait among nitrogen fixers, most of which fight calcareous soil rather than working with it. Its tart red berries, rich in vitamin C, are eaten raw or cooked, dried like currants, or turned into jelly, and they double as one of the best native winter foods for grouse and waxwings on the northern Great Plains. It suckers hard into dense, thorny thickets over 6 ft tall, so it belongs on a boundary hedge or pond-berm rather than inside a planting, and it needs a male alongside the females or there is no fruit at all.