Cotoneaster Species, Peking Cotoneaster

The Peking or Hedge Cotoneaster from northeast Asia is a good quality shrub that is basically neat and clean and it is sold occassionally...Read More in the Midwest in many nurseries. My parents house had three planted as a screen back in 1954 and the plants were there until the new owners re-landscaped everything and took them out about 2004. They are usually used as plant screens or are sheared into a hedge. It develops a good yellow & orange fall color with some red and purple spots. It bears black berries unlike most other cotoneasters that bear red ones. Arthur Viertel in his book of Trees, Shrubs, and Vines listed three very similar species of this large shrub as C. lucida (Hedge) with shiny leaves and hairless flowers, C. acutifolia (Peking) with duller leaves and hairy flowers, and C. foveolata (Glossy) with glossy leaves that are a little larger. Most nurseries call this Peking. Once during a hot, dry summer in the 1970's I had to prune the shrubs way down below the infection of blackening stems from the bacterial disease of Fire Blight. I've always liked this plant, but because I am now influenced by the American Native Plant Movement, I am less inclined to use this, and instead would more often opt for the Tall Black Chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa elata, a close relative that is similar looking.