shrub

Dictionary: shrub¹ (shrŭb) pronunciation

A woody plant of relatively low height, having several stems arising from the base and lacking a single trunk; a bush.

[Middle English schrubbe, from Old English scrybb.]

shrub² (shrŭb) pronunciation

A beverage made from fruit juice, sugar, and a liquor such as rum or brandy.

[From Arabic šurb, a drink, from šariba, to drink.]

Search unanswered questions...

Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library

5min Related Video: shrub

Top

Food and Nutrition: shrub

Top

A bottled cordial made from various fruits, spirits, and sugar.

Food Lover's Companion: shrub

Top

Colonial-day shrubs were spiked with liquor (usually brandy or rum) but today these fruit juice, sugar and vinegar drinks are usually nonalcoholic. Shrubs are served over ice, with or without soda water.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: shrub

Top

Any woody plant that has several stems, none of which is dominant, and is usually less than 10 ft (3 m) tall. When much-branched and dense, it may be called a bush. Intermediate between shrubs and trees are arborescences, or treelike shrubs (10 – 20 ft, or 3 – 6 m, tall). Trees are generally defined as woody plants more than 20 ft (6 m) tall, having a dominant stem, or trunk, and a definite crown shape. These distinctions are not reliable, however; for example, under especially favourable environmental conditions, some shrubs may grow to the size of an arborescence or even a small tree.

For more information on shrub, visit Britannica.com.

Architecture: shrub

Top

A woody plant with stems branching from or near the ground and, in general, smaller than a tree; a bush.

Columbia Encyclopedia: shrub

Top

shrub, any woody, perennial, bushy plant that branches into several stems or trunks at the base and is smaller than a tree. Shrubs are an important feature of permanent landscape planting, being used for formal decorative groups, hedges, screens, and background plantings, to which they contribute pattern, color, fragrance, or utility. In the natural style of landscape gardening they are simply allowed to grow untended, but in many gardens they are pruned in the spring or fall for greater shapeliness and to induce more compact growth. Many shrubs are beautiful even in winter because some keep their green foliage (as in the evergreen arborvitae and rhododendron), while many deciduous shrubs have decorative stem and branch forms or brightly colored fruits. Among the most frequently used shrubs in NE America are the lilac, viburnum, forsythia, azalea, flowering shadbush, cotoneaster, and barberry. In arid, arctic, and other regions of extreme climatic conditions where trees do not thrive, shrubs often provide valuable forage for wildlife and livestock as well as wood for local construction and for fuel. Tree species may grow as shrubs under unfavorable environmental conditions, and the distinction between trees and shrubs becomes one of usage rather than of strictly botanical characteristics.

Bibliography

See D. Wyman, Shrubs and Vines for American Gardens (rev. ed. 1969).

Gardener's Dictionary: shrub

Top

A woody plant that is shorter than a tree and usually has several stems that branch from the base. These are not hard-and-fast distinctions; a tree may have two or more trunks. For example, the cornelian cherry, Cornus mas, is generally described as a shrub although it easily grows to 25 feet. The Sargent crab apple, Malus sargentii, may top out at 12 feet but is generally considered a tree. In these cases, a plant is often described as a shrub or small tree, depending on how it is used in the landscape and whether or not the lower branches have been removed. See also bush.

Wikipedia: Shrub

Top

For the place in California, see Shrub, California.

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)

A broom shrub in flower.

A Rhododendron shrubbery in Sheringham Park.

A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than a strict botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5–6 m (15–20 ft) tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience. Small, low shrubs such as lavender, periwinkle and thyme are often termed subshrubs.

An area of cultivated shrubs in a park or garden is known as a shrubbery. When clipped as topiary, shrubs generally have dense foliage and many small leafy branches growing close together. Many shrubs respond well to renewal pruning, in which hard cutting back to a 'stool' results in long new stems known as "canes". Other shrubs respond better to selective pruning to reveal their structure and character.

Shrubs in common garden practice are generally broad-leaved plants, though some smaller conifers such as Mountain Pine and Common Juniper are also shrubby in structure. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen.

1 Shrubs as a botanical structural form
2 List of shrubs (bushes)
3 References
4 See also

Shrubs as a botanical structural form

Main article: shrubland

In botany and ecology a shrub is more specifically used to describe the particular physical structural or plant life-form of woody plants which are less than 8 m high and usually have many stems arising at or near the base.

For example, a descriptive system widely adopted in Australia is based on structural characteristics based on life-form, plus the height and amount of foliage cover of the tallest layer or dominant species.^[1]

For shrubs 2–8 m high the following structural forms are categorized:

dense foliage cover (70–100%) — closed-scrub
mid-dense foliage cover (30–70%) — open-scrub
sparse foliage cover (10–30%) — tall shrubland
very sparse foliage cover (<10%) — tall open shrubland

For shrubs less than 2 m high the following structural forms are categorized:

dense foliage cover (70–100%) — closed-heath
mid-dense foliage cover (30–70%) — open-heath
sparse foliage cover (10–30%) — low shrubland
very sparse foliage cover (<10%) — low open shrubland

List of shrubs (bushes)

Those marked * can also develop into tree form.

A

Abelia (Abelia)
Actinidia (Actinidia)
Aloe (Aloe)
Aralia (Angelica Tree, Hercules' Club) *
Arctostaphylos (Bearberry, Manzanita) *
Aronia (Chokeberry)
Artemisia (Sagebrush)
Aucuba (Aucuba)

B

C

D

E

Edgeworthia (Paper Bush) *
Elaeagnus (Elaeagnus) *
Embothrium (Chilean Firebush) *
Empetrum (Crowberry)
Enkianthus (Pagoda Bush)
Ephedra (Ephedra)
Epigaea (Trailing Arbutus)
Erica (Heath)
Eriobotrya (Loquat) *
Escallonia (Escallonia)
Eucryphia (Eucryphia) *
Euonymus (Spindle) *
Exochorda (Pearl Bush)

F

G

H

I

J

K

Kalmia (Mountain-laurel)
Kerria (Kerria)
Kolkwitzia (Beauty-bush)

L

M

Magnolia (Magnolia)
Mahonia (Mahonia)
Malpighia (Acerola)
Menispermum (Moonseed)
Menziesia (Menziesia)
Mespilus (Medlar) *
Microcachrys (Microcachrys)
Myrica (Bayberry) *
Myricaria (Myricaria)
Myrtus and allied genera (Myrtle) *

N

Neillia (Neillia)
Nerium (Oleander)

O

Olearia (Daisy Bush) *
Osmanthus (Osmanthus)

P

Q

Quassia (Quassia) *
Quercus| (Oak) *
Quillaja (Quillay)
Quintinia (Tawheowheo) *

R

S

T

Tamarix (Tamarix) *
Taxus (Yew) *
Telopea (Waratah) *
Thuja cvs. (Arborvitae) *
Thymelaea
Thymus (Thyme)
Trochodendron *

U

Ulex (Gorse)
Ungnadia (Mexican Buckeye)

V

Vaccinium (Bilberry, Blueberry, Cranberry)
Verbena (Vervain)
Viburnum (Viburnum) *
Vinca (Periwinkle)
Viscum (Mistletoe)

W

Weigela (Weigela)

X

Y

Yucca (Yucca, Joshua tree) *

Z

References

^ Costermans, L. F. (1993) Native trees and shrubs of South-Eastern Australia. rev. ed. ISBN 0947116761

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Food and Nutrition. A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition. Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2005 by A. E. Bender and D. A. Bender. All rights reserved. Read more
		Food Lover's Companion. Food Lover's Companion. Copyright © 2001 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Architecture. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more
		Gardener's Dictionary. Taylor's Dictionary for Gardeners, by Frances Tenenbaum. Copyright © 1997 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Shrub". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

	What is the Markio Shrub? Read answer...
	Do shrubs have sap? Read answer...
	What is the anagram for shrub? Read answer...

	How do you plant a shrub?
	What is a prickly shrub?
	What is a prostate shrub?

shrub

Contents

Shrubs as a botanical structural form

List of shrubs (bushes)

References

See also