i.YJ AMERICAN FOKI-M IKKKS 



and warp in seasoning, is satiny, and is susceptible of a good polish. 

 Medullary rays are very numerous, but obscure; color, dark brown, often 

 tinged with red. The wood is stronger, stiffer and heavier than white 

 oak. It possesses most of the properties to make it a wood of great 

 value, but its scarcity, and the usual small size of the trees, relegate it to 

 the class of minor woods. Some use is made of it in turnery and for 

 other small articles. It is frequently planted in gardens for its bloom 

 and berries. In such situations it lacks some of the charm which it 

 holds as part and parcel of the wildwoods where its early spring bloom is 

 thrown against a background of leafless branches. 



WESTERN SERVICEBERRY (Amelanchier alnifolia) is also called 

 pigeonberry and sarvice. Its botanical name refers to the resemblance 

 of its leaves to those of alder. Its range covers a million square miles, 

 and the species reaches its best development on islands and rich bottom 

 lands of the lower Columbia river. It is found as far south as California, 

 north to Yukon territory, east to Lake Superior and northern Michigan. 

 It is nowhere a tree of attractive size, and is usually a shrub about ten 

 feet tall and one inch thick. Trees are sometimes thirty feet high and 

 six or eight inches in diameter. The fruit is blue-black and sweet, and 

 pleasant to the taste if not overripe. Indians in the northern and 

 western range of this tree gather the berries industriously while they last, 

 and many of the white settlers do likewise. The birds flock to the 

 thickets for their share, and though the berries are small, the bears in the 

 region consider them worthy of prompt and continued attention. 

 The berries are generally a little more than half an inch in diameter, 

 and ripen in July or August, depending on latitude. Cattle, sheep, 

 goats, and deer find this small tree or bush a source of food. They do 

 not object to eating the berries when obtainable, but their principal 

 attack is on the leaves and tender shoots which afford excellent browse. 

 Fortunately, the serviceberry is so tenacious of life that it is next to 

 impossible to browse it to death. If eaten down to the ground, with 

 little left but bare and barked trunks sticking up like bean poles, the 

 roots will throw up sprouts year after year, making the service thicket a 

 permanent browse-pasture. Fire is not able to destroy such a thicket, 

 for, when the tops are burned off, the sprouts will quickly spring up 

 with vigor unimpaired. As a source of food for insects, birds, beasts, 

 and men, few trees, in proportion to size and quantity, are the equal of 

 western serviceberry. Flowers, fruit, leaves and sprouts are all food 

 for something. 



LONGLEAF SERVICE TREE (Amelanchier obovalis) is by some 

 regarded a variety rather than a species. It occupies in part the same 

 range as serviceberry, but runs much farther north, reaching the valley 



