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Western sandcherry

Prunus besseyi (accepted: Prunus pumila) · Rosaceae · all Prunus records · syn. Prunus besseyi

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context
No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence
4 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Black Hills, South Dakota; British Columbia; Fremont County, Wyoming; Michigan / Great Lakes; OR/WA/ID; Oregon (Willamette Valley); Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); Utah / Intermountain West; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 7 scopes across 7 cited fire sources
  • Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills · Official scoped edition
    • Black Hills (SD footprint); partial normalized coverage

      The page explicitly limits itself to the Black Hills, and NFPA Firewise's archived 2006 plant-list index files it under South Dakota. FireApproved publishes 47 exact genus or species owners from 48 printed rows. This is bounded Black Hills context, not statewide South Dakota coverage or a finding that a plant suits a particular site.

  • Fremont County Firewise Plant List · Official scoped edition
    • Fremont County (WY footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-02-25

      The source identifies itself as the Fremont County Firewise Plant List. FireApproved publishes its 92 exact source owners as Fremont County regional context. No methodology, current county endorsement, statewide Wyoming scope, or site-specific suitability is inferred.

  • Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
    • Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08

      The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.

  • Wildfire-resistant Landscape Plants for Michigan (Extension Bulletin E2948) · Official scoped edition
    • MI; partial normalized coverage · 2007-01-01

      Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.

  • Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley (EM 9103) · Official scoped edition
    • Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01

      OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW 590) · Official scoped edition
    • ID, OR, WA; partial normalized coverage · 2023-10-01

      The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.

  • Firewise Plants for Utah Landscapes (NR/FF/002) · Official scoped edition
    • UT; partial normalized coverage · 2005-02-01

      Utah State University Extension states that this fact sheet selects examples for Utah landscapes and that they require proper placement and maintenance. FireApproved publishes 83 exact source owners at Utah publication scope. The table is not a site-specific planting clearance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AR, CO, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, SD, TN, UT, VT, WA, WI, WY.
Native range
No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established
No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness
4 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Western sandcherry (Prunus besseyi)
Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
shrub
USDA hardiness
Applicable source statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each source
Mature height
~6 ft
Water need
low
Grows in
AR, CO, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY +21
Rated in
Black Hills, South Dakota; British Columbia; Fremont County, Wyoming; Michigan / Great Lakes +5
Family
Rosaceae
Evidence
9 cited sources

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (8)

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Same genus in the directory · the Prunus group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Prunus besseyi (Western sandcherry). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/prunus-besseyi/. Last verified 2026-08-23.