Amelanchier canadensis

Amelanchier canadensis (Canadian serviceberry, Juneberry, Shadblow Serviceberry, Shadblow, Shadbush, Shadbush Serviceberry, Sugarplum, Thicket Serviceberry; syn. Amelanchier canadensis (L.) Medik. var. subintegra Fern., Amelanchier lucida Fern. ) is a medicinal, food and ornamental plant native to Canada and the United States.



Description
A medium sized tree with a tall slender trunk and small spreading branches which form a narrow, oblong head. It ranges throughout the eastern United States, southward to Florida and westward to Minnesota. Prefers rich soil in upland woods. On the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee it reaches its greatest size. Roots are fibrous. The leaves somewhat resemble those of the pear, but are finer and more delicate, covered with a soft, silken down as they come from the bud but becoming smooth at maturity. The flowers are in loose racemes at the ends of the branches.


 * Bark: Pale red brown, divided into narrow ridges the surface of which is scaly. Branchlets bright green, later become dark brown or purplish brown, smooth.
 * Wood: Dark brown, sometimes tinged with red; heavy, hard, close-grained and strong. Sp. gr., 0.7838; weight of cu. ft., 48.85 lbs.
 * Winter buds: Chestnut brown, acute, one-fourth of an inch long. Inner scales enlarge with the growing shoot and are sometimes an inch long before they fall.
 * Leaves: Alternate, simple, ovate to ovate-oblong, three to four inches long, one and a half to two inches broad, cordate or rounded at base, serrate, acute or acuminate. Feather-veined, midrib grooved above, prominent beneath.  They come out of the bud conduplicate, reddish brown and hairy, when full grown are smooth, deep green above, paler beneath.  In autumn they turn a bright yellow.  Petioles are slender, grooved.  Stipules lanceolate, downy, early deciduous.
 * Flowers: April, when leaves are about one-third grown. Perfect, white, borne in racemes from three to five inches long.  Each flower has a slender pedicel, furnished with two lanceolate, purplish silky bractlets which fall as the flower opens.
 * Calyx: Campanulate, five-lobed; lobes lanceolate, acute, downy, persistent, imbricate in bud.
 * Corolla: Petals five, white, strap-shaped, one-half inch to an inch in length, inserted on the calyx tube, imbricate in bud.
 * Stamens: Twenty, inserted on the calyx tube; filaments persistent in fruit; anthers introrse, two-celled; cells opening longitudinally.
 * Pistil: Ovary two to five-celled, united to calyx tube. Styles two to five, with broad stigmas; ovules two in each cell.  When mature each cell has been divided by a cartilaginous partition, giving ten cells and one seed in each.
 * Fruit: Berry-like pome, depressed - globular or pyriform, open at the summit, crowned with the calyx lobes and remnants of the filaments. One-third to one-half of an inch long, rich purple with slight bloom.  Ripens in June, is sweet, with delicious flavor.  Seeds dark brown; cotyledons thick.

Uses
The fruit is delicious and ripens in June. But there are few berries, the largest trees rarely produce more than a quart, and birds eat most of them. Native americans esteemed them highly.

It is a flowering tree of rare elegance and beauty and worthy to be grouped with the Carolina silverbell, the Dogwood, and the Eastern Redbud.

History
The name Shad Bush was given it by the early inhabitants of the eastern states because it chances to bloom by the side of the tidal rivers at the time that the shad ascends them to spawn.