28 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ROSACER. 
dark green and dull on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, three or four inches long and 
an inch to an inch and a half broad, with prominent midribs grooved on the upper side and slender 
veins, and are borne on slender channeled petioles which vary from half an inch to an inch in length. 
The stipules are narrowly lanceolate, membranaceous, pubescent, at first pink but ultimately brown, and 
early deciduous. The leaves turn bright clear yellow in the autumn before falling. The flowers, 
which appear from the end of March at the south to the end of May at the north when the leaves are 
grown to nearly one third of their size, are produced in erect or nodding glabrous racemes three or 
four inches long, and are borne on slender pedicels half an inch to an inch in length, furnished with two 
lanceolate pubescent pink caducous bractlets, and developed from the axils of lanceolate bright-colored 
bracts which fall before the expansion of the flowers. The calyx is campanulate, with lanceolate acute 
lobes, villose on the inner surface, twice the length of the tube, and rather longer than the stamens 
and styles. The petals are strap-shaped or slightly obovate, rounded or acute at the apex, gradually 
contracted at the base, thin, pure white, half an inch to nearly an inch in length, and from a quarter to 
half an inch in width. The ovaries are glabrous. The fruit, which ripens in early summer, is sweet 
and edible ; it is depressed-globular, from a third to half an inch broad, and borne on elongated slender 
stems conspicuously marked by the scars left by the falling of the bractlets ; when first fully grown it 
is bright red, but when ripe becomes dark purple and is covered with a slight glaucous bloom. The 
seeds are an eighth of an inch long, with a dark red-brown opaque coat. 
Amelanchier Canadensis is distributed from Newfoundland through the maritime provinces of 
Canada, where it is common, and westward along the northern shores of the Great Lakes,’ and in the 
United States ranges southward to northern Florida and westward to Minnesota, eastern Nebraska,’ 
eastern Kansas, Louisiana, and southern Arkansas. 
Amelanchier Canadensis grows in rich soil in upland woods with Oaks, Hickories, Sugar Maples, 
and Birches ; it is abundant in all the northern parts of the country and on the Alleghany Mountains, 
where, in North Carolina and Tennessee, it reaches its greatest size. In the coast region of the Atlantic 
Gulf states it is represented only by a low shrubby form, while west of the Alleghany Mountains it is 
common in all the elevated regions but does not extend into the river-bottoms, and is more abundant 
at the north than at the south. 
The wood of Amelanchier Canadensis is heavy, exceedingly hard, strong, and close-grained, with 
a satiny surface susceptible of receiving a good polish; it is dark brown often tinged with red, with 
thick lighter colored sapwood composed of forty or fifty layers of annual growth, and contains numerous 
obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7888, a cubic foot weigh- 
ing 48.85 pounds. It is occasionally used for the handles of tools and other small implements. 
Amelanchier Canadensis varies considerably in the form of its leaves and in the character of the 
pubescence which sometimes covers them, in the size of its flowers and fruit, and in its habit and 
stature. The most distinct of these forms is Amelanchier Canadensis, var. obovalis.2 This is a tree 
sometimes twenty-five or thirty feet in height, with a single straight stem or often with a cluster of 
spreading stems springing from the ground and forming a broad tall bush. The leaves are oblong 
or broadly elliptical, acute or rounded at the apex, rounded or subcordate at the base, remotely serrate 
1 Brunet, Cat. Veg. Lig. Can. 27. — Bell, Rep. Geolog. Surv. Can. 
1867-69, Appendix 9 (Pl. Manitoulin Islands). — Macoun, Cat. 
Can. Pl. i, 148. 
2 Bessey, Bull. Exper. Stat. Nebraska, iv. art. iv. 20. 
8 Amelanchier Canadensis, var. obovalis. 
Mespilus Canadensis, var. obovalis, Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 291. 
Pyrus sanguinea, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i, 340 (in part). — 
Sprengel, Syst. ii. 509. 
Pyrus ovatis, Bigelow, Fl. Boston. ed. 2, 195 (not Willdenow). 
Aronia ovalis, Torrey, Fl. U. S. 479. 
Amelanchier intermedia, Spach, Hist. Veg. ii. 85. — Wenzig, 
Linnea, xxxviii. 112. 
Amelanchier C is, var. oblongifolia, Torrey & Gray, Fi. 
N. Am.i. 473. — Walpers, Rep. ii. 55. — Dietrich, Syn. iii. 158. — 
Torrey, Fl. N. Y. i. 225; Nicollet’s Rep. 149. — Emerson, Trees 
Mass. ed. 2, ii. 504, t. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census 
U.S. ix. 84. — Watson & Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 167. 
Amelanchier oblongifolia, Roemer, Fam. Nat. Syn. iii. 147. 
Amelanchier spicata, Decaisne, Nouv. Arch. Mus. x. 135, t. 9, 
f.5 (not Lamarck). 
