Prunus subcordata

Pacific plum, sierra plum, Sierra Plum

Family: Rosaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Pacific plum is a California native shrub found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, central western California, and the Modoc Plateau in mixed-evergreen or conifer forest at elevations of 100 to 1,900 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces white flowers in small umbel-like clusters with 2 to 5 blossoms, each petal 5 to 10 millimeters long. Growing as a shrub less than 3 meters tall, often forming dense thickets with slight thorny characteristics, it develops a compact and somewhat sprawling form. Its deciduous leaves are oblong-ovate to nearly round, 20 to 50 millimeters long with finely serrated edges, featuring a rounded to slightly heart-shaped base and obtuse to rounded tips. The fruit is a small fleshy drupe 15 to 25 millimeters long, ranging in color from yellow to dark red when ripe.

Habitat: Mixed-evergreen or conifer forest

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: 100-1900 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SN, CW, MP

California counties: Sonoma, Sierra, Lake, Placer, Modoc, Fresno, Tulare, Napa, Santa Clara, Butte, Contra Costa, Trinity, El Dorado, Marin, Humboldt, Siskiyou, San Mateo, Madera, Shasta, Tuolumne, Alameda, Kern, Calaveras, Del Norte, Glenn, Lassen, Tehama, Yuba, Amador, Mariposa, Nevada, Mendocino, Plumas, Solano, Colusa

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.