Celtis laevigata – Nutritional Value, Health Benefits, Recipes

Celtis laevigata is a medium-sized tree native to North America. Common names include sugarberry, Southern hackberry, or in the southern U.S. sugar hackberry or just hackberry. Sugarberry is easily confused with common hackberry (C. occidentalis) where the range overlaps. Sugarberry has narrower leaves which are smoother above. The species can also be distinguished by habitat: where the ranges overlap, common hackberry occurs primarily in upland areas, whereas sugarberry occurs mainly in bottomland areas.

Sugarberry’s range extends from the Eastern United States west to Texas and south to northeastern Mexico.^[rx] It is also found on the island of Bermuda.^[rx]

Celtis laevigata, commonly called sugarberry, sugar hackberry, or southern hackberry, is basically a southern version of common or northern hackberry belonging to Ulmaceae (Elm family). The plant is native to the southeastern part of the United States, ranging south from southeastern Virginia to southern Florida; west to central Texas and including northeastern Mexico; north to western Oklahoma and southern Kansas; and east to Missouri, extreme southern Illinois, and Indiana.  It occurs locally in Maryland. Sugarberry is simply confused with Common Hackberry, (Celtis occidentalis) where the range overlaps. Sugarberry has narrower leaves which are smoother above. The species can also be distinguished by habitat: where the ranges overlap, Common Hackberry occurs mainly in upland areas, whereas Sugarberry occurs mostly in bottomland areas.

Sugarberry, hackberry, lowland hackberry, sugar hackberry, Arizona sugarberry, net leaf hackberry, Small’s hackberry, southern hackberry, Texas sugarberry, Southern Hackberry, Lowland Hackberry, Hackberry, Palo Blanco, sugar hackberry, beaver wood, and Littlewood are some of the popular common names of the plant. Genus name Celtis is the ancient Greek name for a lotus with sweet berries and was used by Pliny. Specific epithet Laevigata means smooth, and most of the sugarberry’s bark is smooth but there are always tell-tale corky warts, without thorns.  It is interesting that English speakers would refer to the tree as the Sugarberry and the Greeks, a world and language away, call their tree, the C. australis, the Honeyberry. Clearly, the dry sweetness impresses people. The plant is harvested from the wild for mainly local use as food, medicine, and a source of materials. It is grown as an ornamental and a street tree

Sugarberry Facts

Plant Description

Sugarberry is a medium to a moderately large-sized deciduous tree growing up to 30 meters tall and cylindrical bole can be up to 100 cm in diameter. It has a straight, short bole and a broad, rounded, and open crown with spreading or slightly drooping branches. Roots are relatively shallow; it does not form a distinct taproot and has only average resistance to windthrow. The twigs are slender, zigzagging, and greenish-brown to light reddish-brown. The pith is commonly chambered at the nodes and homogenous between the nodes. The bark of young trees is gray and smooth while mature trees develop corky outgrowths that are scattered to dense with smooth areas in between.

Leaf scars are crescent-shaped or oval, bundle scars 3 per leaf scar, stipule scars are inconspicuous. Buds axillary, brown or reddish-brown, 1.5–3.2 mm long, ovoid, sharp, pubescent, puberulent, bud scales imbricate. The plant is found growing in rich bottomlands along streams, in flood plains, and on rocky slopes, generally in clay soils, streams, and woodlands. It succeeds in any reasonably good soil, preferring a good fertile well-drained loamy soil. Similarly, it does best on dry gravels and on sandy soils. It cannot tolerate prolonged flooding or water-saturated soils. Sugarberry has a moderately long life span, not usually living over 150 years.

Leaves

Leaves are deciduous, simple, petiolate, alternate, distichous, about 6–8 cm long, 3–4 cm wide. Leaves are usually lanceolate, ovate or oval-shaped, and often curve to one side. Leaf margins are mostly untoothed, but a few (rarely many) small teeth may be present. Leaf apices are acuminate or acute or caudate. Leaf bases are cuneate or oblique or obtuse or rounded. Leaves bear 3 prominent veins that branch from the base of the leaf blade. The upper surface of the leaves is green or yellow-green, glabrous, or glabrate while the lower surface is green or yellow-green, glabrous, or glabrate. Light green leaves turn bright yellow in fall and can be showy in some years. Petioles are 0.6–1.3 cm long and glabrous. Stipules are present and are caducous.

Leaf arrangement	Alternate
Leaf type	Simple
Leaf margin	Serrate
Leaf shape	Ovate, lanceolate
Leaf venation	Pinnate, brachidodrome, reticulate, bowed
Leaf type and persistence	Deciduous
Leaf-blade length	1 to 6 inches
Leaf color	Light green on top, paler green underneath
Fall color	Yellow
Fall characteristic	Showy

Flowers & Fruit

Flowers occur in small clusters, with functionally unisexual female and male flowers on the same tree, occasionally with male and female flowers combined. Male flowers occur in clusters and female flowers are solitary. Greenish flowers appear in spring (April –May).

Flower color	Greenish white
Flower characteristic	Not showy; emerges singly or in clusters at leaf axils
Flowering	Spring, with the leaves

 

Fertile female flowers give way to an often abundant fruit crop of round fleshy berry-like drupes about 0.4–0.9 cm long. Fruits are initially green turning to orange, red, or dark purple as they mature. The fruit has thick skin with a netlike pattern on the surface. Each drupe has one round brown seed within. Fruits are attractive to a variety of wildlife. Birds consume the fruits and disperse the seeds. Fleshy parts of the fruit are edible and sweet.

Fruit shape	Round
Fruit length	1/3 inch
Fruit covering	Fleshy drupe
Fruit color	Orange to red, turns deep purple when ripe
Fruit characteristics	Attracts birds; not showy; fruit/leaves a litter problem
Fruiting	Matures in the fall

 

History

Sugarberry ranges south from southeastern Virginia to southern Florida, west to central Texas and northeastern Mexico, and north to western Oklahoma, southern Kansas, Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and western Kentucky. It is localized in Maryland, the Rio Grande Valley, and northeastern Mexico. Its range overlaps the southern part of the range of common hackberry.

Traditional uses and benefits of Sugarberry

• Decoction of the bark has been used in the treatment of sore throats.
• It has also been used, mixed with powdered shells, as a treatment for VD.
• The Houma used a concentrate made from the bark to treat sore throats.
• A decoction made from the bark and ground-up shells to treat venereal disease.
• Due to their astringent properties, both the leaves and the fruit may be taken as a decoction to reduce heavy menstrual and inter-menstrual uterine bleeding.
• Fruit and leaves may also be used to astringe the mucous membranes of the gut in peptic ulcers, diarrhea, and dysentery.

Culinary Uses

• Fruit can be consumed raw or cooked.
• The Acoma, Navajo, and Tewa all consumed the berries for food.
• The berries of this species were used as a food seasoning by Native Americans and early settlers.

Other Facts

• This tree may be used as a lawn tree or street tree.
• Wood is used mostly for cheap furniture but also is used for dimension stock, flooring, crating, fuel, cooperage, and fence posts.
• The plant is harvested from the wild for mainly local use as food, medicine, and a source of materials.
• The Navajo boiled the leaves and branches to make dark brown and red dye for wool.
• Sugarberry is used for furniture, athletic goods, firewood, and plywood.
• It is used as an ornamental and as a street tree in residential areas in the lower South.
• The berries secrete a sweet sticky substance in the autumn that attracts millions of mealy bugs.

References

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