In January, the first pink buds open on the large crowded clusters at the tips of Rhus integrifolia, commonly known as the lemonade-berry bush or sour-berry bush. The flowers are white, tinged with red.
By early spring, the ovule of each bloom will become flattened, round-edged berries covered with pale green flesh. This soon develops into a thick and glandular covering that turns a glistening, silvery white, making the shrub look as though it were in flower for a second time.
Lemonade-Berry Bush Characteristics
This slick coat gave Rhums integrifolia its familiar name, lemonade-berry bush. By soaking the gummy seeds in water, the California Indians made a tart lemonade; this is still popular in Lower California.
By early summer, the berries are as red as holly, but this colorful stage is short. Flickers and thrashers are particularly fond of them and spread plantings by dispersing seed.
The lemonade-berry bush averages 6′ feet in height, but the size and shape depend on location and soil. It may become a small tree of 30′ feet—in which case it is not likely to be as wide as tall.
The dark green leaves, 2 1/2″ inches long, are leathery and rather undulating. The flowers last long in the water, and the branches are so profuse that long blossoming ones may be cut.
The lemonade berry has proved to be the most serviceable of the seven thus species native to the Pacific Coast because it will grow in any soil and take moisture or drought.
Though its natural habitat is limited to Southern California, it grows everywhere. When cut down by severe frost, new sprouts come from the basal stub.
Give The Same Treatment As Your Garden Exotics
Give it the same treatment you give your garden exotics, and you will have a healthy bush for covering banks, for espalier work, and, if you prune it low, for a ground cover.
Nurseries offer plants in gallon cans. It pays to choose small ones as the larger ones may be pot-bound.
Unless planted as the rainy season begins, they must be watered until established. Pick seed before the birds get it.
Rub off the sticky coating and sow outdoors right away. watering the seed bed, of course, if the rainy season has not begun.
When 2″ inches tall, move the seedlings to permanent places. They will have developed long, tap water-searching roots that enable them to endure long periods of drought. Despite this, transplanted seedlings should be watered the first summer.
44659 by Lester Rowntree