Prunus rivularisScheele

creek plum

WFO wfo-0001013919 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Prunus rivularis, photographed by Annika Lindqvist
fig. a Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-07-27 / obs. 22243896
Prunus rivularis, photographed by Michael D Fox
fig. b Michael D Fox, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1662526
Prunus rivularis, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. c Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 33703905
Prunus rivularis, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. d Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 7312153
Prunus rivularis, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. e Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 6628107
Prunus rivularis, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. f Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 6430195
Prunus rivularis, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. g Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1774237
Prunus rivularis, photographed by lanechaffin
fig. h lanechaffin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 116211851

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 20 botanical countries

Regions where Prunus rivularis is native: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas AlabamaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMarylandMississippiMissouriNew JerseyNorth CarolinaOhioOklahomaPennsylvaniaTennesseeTexas
Native distribution of Prunus rivularis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
California CAL
Colorado COL
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
New Jersey NWJ
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Pennsylvania PEN
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 232 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.2 °C 3.8 °C 6.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 33.2 °C 34.4 °C 34.8 °C
Annual rainfall 829 mm 924 mm 1,118 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 143 mm 178 mm 205 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 232 research-grade observations of Prunus rivularis that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 4 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Prunus reverchonii Sarg.
  • Prunus rivularis var. pubescens Enquist
  • Prunus tawakonia Lindh. ex A.Gray
  • Prunus texana Scheele

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.