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Summary
Prunus rivularis, known variously by the common names creek plum, hog plum, or wild-goose plum is a thicket-forming shrub in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is a deciduous shrub consisting of slender stems with umbel clusters of white blossoms. The fruit is a drupe that resembles a large berry.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Prunus rivularis", CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the genus · Prunus
Prunus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs from the rose family (Rosaceae) that produce stone fruits, or drupes. As of March 2024, the genus has about 340 accepted species, including almonds, apricots, cherries, peaches, and plums. It has a cosmopolitan distribution, being native to the temperate regions of North America, the neotropics of South America, and temperate and tropical regions of Eurasia and Africa.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Prunus", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a temperate garden plant, listed under the genus Prunus in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “shrub or tree”, “temperate”.
Seasons
The rain rule reads no short rainy season: 70% of the median year's rain (711 mm of 936 mm) takes 8 months, March to July and September to November. Mean temperature moves 20.4 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to January and March to May.
Rain
936 mm in the median year at the habitat, 711 mm of it March to July and September to November. Wettest month May at 123 mm, driest month January at 50 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 619 mm to 1,181 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 982 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 936 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.
Light
Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 44 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).
Warmth and air
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is -6.6 °C, the absolute minimum -17.7 °C, 1,770 frost nights in 44 years, 40.2 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 41.7 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 3.5 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -4.3 °C to 5.7 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 33.2 °C in August (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: -6.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).
Relative humidity at the habitat: 55 to 58% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
How this section is made
Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.
Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.
Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +21 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.
Group. Listed under the genus Prunus in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “shrub or tree”, “temperate”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 14 °C in Jan and Dec to 33 °C in Jul and Aug; mean nightly low from 4 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul and Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low. 936 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month May. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 266 habitat cells. Over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER) the absolute minimum was -17.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 41.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 14 / 5–16 | 16 / 8–19 | 20 / 13–22 | 25 / 19–27 | 28 / 24–30 | 31 / 29–32 | 33 / 31–34 | 33 / 30–35 | 30 / 26–31 | 25 / 20–26 | 19 / 12–21 | 14 / 6–16 |
| Night °C | 4 / -4–6 | 5 / -2–7 | 9 / 3–11 | 13 / 8–15 | 18 / 14–19 | 21 / 19–23 | 23 / 21–25 | 23 / 20–25 | 20 / 16–21 | 15 / 10–16 | 9 / 4–11 | 5 / -3–7 |
| Rain mm | 50 / 28–75 | 56 / 36–79 | 80 / 45–102 | 81 / 50–113 | 123 / 78–155 | 112 / 80–159 | 65 / 47–116 | 61 / 50–95 | 82 / 68–113 | 98 / 67–122 | 70 / 37–97 | 58 / 30–87 |
| DLI | 18 / 14–21 | 23 / 20–26 | 29 / 27–33 | 35 / 34–40 | 37 / 37–41 | 41 / 41–43 | 44 / 41–44 | 40 / 37–41 | 33 / 30–34 | 25 / 22–27 | 19 / 15–22 | 17 / 12–19 |
| RH % | 57 / 55–59 | 57 / 54–58 | 56 / 53–57 | 55 / 52–57 | 58 / 56–60 | 58 / 56–59 | 56 / 53–58 | 55 / 53–58 | 56 / 54–57 | 56 / 55–57 | 57 / 55–58 | 58 / 55–59 |
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) IDClaire, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Cleveland Powell, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Hordeum pusillum Little barley Photo: CC0, author not stated
Acalypha persimilis Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY, Clay
Toxicoscordion nuttallii Nuttall's death camas Photo: CC0, author not stated
Bothriochloa torreyana Silver bluestem Photo: CC BY, Rich Sommer Argythamnia mercurialina Euphorbiaceae 
Solidago radula Western rough goldenrod Photo: CC BY, saltyhikerOther Prunus 125 in the reference
Prunus africana African cherry Photo: CC BY-SA, Tony Rebelo Prunus alaica Rosaceae 
Prunus americana American plum Photo: CC BY, Tom Norton
Prunus amygdalus Almond Photo: CC BY-SA, Ken Young
Prunus andersonii Desert peach Photo: CC BY, Tom Wainwright
Prunus angustifolia Cherokee plum Photo: CC0, author not stated Prunus apetala Taiwan cherry 
Prunus armeniaca Apricot Photo: CC BY, Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
Prunus avium Wild cherry Photo: CC0, author not stated
Prunus bifrons Rosaceae Photo: CC0, Andreas Manz Prunus brachypetala Kurdish mountain cherry Prunus brachystachya Rosaceae all 126 ›Names & registers
Also known as Prunus reverchonii; Prunus tawakonia. (GBIF Backbone)
Under another author Prunus texana Scheele is an older name of this species, not Prunus texana, a species of the reference. (GBIF Backbone)
The record
Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →
Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 10 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (3 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 3 at a herbarium, 4 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 33.00_-96.875, lapse-corrected +21 m at 6.5 °C/kmwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 31 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.