FOREST TREES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 345 



AMELANCHIER. SERVICEBERRIES. 



The servieeberries are small, slender, scaly-barked trees and shrubs of world- 

 wide range, but nowhere of forest or economic importance. The heartwood is 

 brown or reddish brown, very fine-grained, hard, firm, and heavy; there is a 

 large proportion of whitish sapwood. Twigs are very small. The showy, nod- 

 ding, or erect clusters of white flowers, which usually appear in early spring 

 before the leaves, make the trees conspicuous in the leafless forest. Flowers 

 (male and female reproductive organs in each), with five white divisions, are 

 visited by insects, which aid in their cross-fertilization. The small, symmet- 

 rically formed leaves, shed in autumn, are arranged singly on the twigs (never 

 in pairs, one opposite another). Fruit, deep red or dull purple, and borne in 

 small branched clusters, ripens early or late in summer and resembles a huckle- 

 berry ; it has a somewhat juicy, sweetish, edible pulp, with from 5 to 10 very 

 minute, dark brown seeds. For their distribution the seeds depend almost 

 entirely upon birds and mammals, which eat the berries, but with little injury 

 to the seeds. Trees of the group are confined to North America, where 3 or 4 

 species occur, one of which ranges from the Rocky Mountains into the Pacific 

 region. 



Western Serviceberry. 



Amelanchicr alnifolia Nuttall. 



DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS. 



Western serviceberry is a tall, slender-stemmed shrub from 8 to 10 feet high 

 and about an inch thick ; very commonly under 3 feet in height, forming vast 

 thickets ; it seldom becomes a tree as much as 25 or 30 feet high and from 4 to 8 

 inches through, and then has a slender, straight, clean trunk and a narrow, 

 open crown. The bark is dull grayish or slightly reddish brown and indis- 

 tinctly seamed near the ground — usually quite smooth. Season's twigs are 

 clear red, smooth (though with white hairs when young), with sharp-pointed, 

 russet-brown buds. Mature leaves (fig. 162), thin in shady places but thickish 

 in the open, are deep or pale green and smooth on their upper surface, and 

 smooth and grayish, sometimes minutely and sparsely hairy, beneath. The 

 blue-black, sweetish fruit, with a whitish bloom, matures (according to the 

 locality) from about July to August, and is about one-half to five-eighths of an 

 inch through (fig. 162). When not overripe the edible fruit is agreeable to 

 the taste, and where abundant is often gathered by settlers (who call the tree 

 "sarviee ? 'l. as well as by Indians, for food. Birds and mammals, especially 

 bears, consume large quantities of the fruit. Wood, pale yellowish brown; of 

 no economic use. The only value of the tree to the forester lies in the fact 

 that it forms dense thickets, with other brush, at high elevations, where its 

 rigid, often closely browsed stems, help to prevent run-off. Its tree forms, 

 which are rare, are of no commercial value. Shrubby forms, quickly killed by 

 ground fires, sprout from the roots, and otherwise endure with persistent 

 growth the constant browsing of range cattle, its stems only becoming more 

 and more intricately and densely branched. 



Longevity. — Not fully determined. Steins from 2 to 4 inches in diameter are 

 from 9 to 20 years old. 



RAN'C.K. 



From Alaska (Yukon River, latitude 02°. 45') to California (southern boundary) ; 

 eastward through British. Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba to Lake Superior 

 (western shores), northern Michigan, Nebraska, Colorado, and New Mexico (Rocky 

 Mountains). 



