SHADBUSH (Service Berry. Juneberry ) 



Amelanchier arborea i Michx. ) Fern. 



April 



Wooded, rocky hills 



Now the fleeting touch of spring sets bouquets 

 of blossoms all across the countrvsicTe — now 



bloom the flowering trees which are part of the 

 prairie springtime. It is they which carry bloom aloft, lift it from the 

 ground where the violets and bluebells and buttercups grow, and fling 

 color, light, and perfume against a sun-and-showers sky. They are the 

 intangible spirit of springtime made tangible, translated in terms of 

 thousands of flowers set upon the thousand twigs of shadbush, redbud, 

 dogwood, haw, and crab. 



From afar they are unreal and misty, as if a wind might puff them 

 away. They accent the hills and ornament the woodlands, give the 

 meagerest roadside and most barren slope the fairy-tale glamor of a 

 light-opera setting. 



In early spring when all a])out there is/ only the grey and brown of 

 the sleeping winter woods, the sudden foam-white of the shadbush-bloom 

 comes dramatically to ])ut an end to winter. Shadbush is a slender, 

 gTaceful, airy little ti'ce with grey bark and long thin twigs. On the 

 twig-tips the buds open before the leaves have more than begun to expand 

 in grey and pink silk in the sunshine, and soon there are large thimbles 

 of white flowers all over the shad trees. A mend)er of the Rose family, 

 the flowers are five petaled and are followed by tinv, long-stennned, 

 miniature apples. These are the shadberries which are so well liked by 

 robins that few fruits are gathered by human beings, lint when they 

 are — service berry ])ies are tlie delectnble I'csidt. 



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