Amelanchier alnifolia, saskatoon

Amelanchier alnifolia

Roseaceae

Native

The experts of pronunciation provide a variety of pronunciations for Amelanchier. USDA says the third syllable is ‘lang’ and the fourth syllable is ‘kee’. The other pronunciations I checked have the third syllable as ‘lan’.

The Oxford dictionary says the fourth syllable is ‘chee’. Other’s say ‘shee’ and ‘ki’. The ‘ki’ people want to move the stress from ‘lan’ to ‘mel’. [I think the ‘ki’ people were Spanish speakers.]

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Wikipedia says Amelanchier is probably derived from amalanquier, a Provencal name for the European Amelanchier ovalis.

Alnifolia means ‘alder leaved’.

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I have 31 pages of undigested notes from the internet. Much more than usual. There is a lot of interest in this plant.

I checked 12 pages of Google results and did not find anything from Paul Slichter. That was very odd. Paul is not always on the first page but his articles are early. He had been crowded out.

I Googled Amelanchier alnifolia Slichter and found 10 pages of articles all with Slichter’s name attached … 50 articles. There were more. I quit looking after ten pages.

I don’t know Paul Slichter but I don’t think his interests are commercial.

The reason for the great interest in A. alnifolia is definitely commercial, both as an ornamental plant and as an orchard plant. There are apparently lots of Saskatoon orchards in Canada and there is interest in Saskatoon orchards in this country.

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Apparently Amelanchier is a difficult genus for the botanists to pigeonhole and A. alnifolia is a somewhat difficult species.

In addition people have been dinking with ‘cultivars’ for more than a hundred years.

Slichter finds four species of Amelanchier alnifolia in the Columbia Gorge:

Var. alnifolia

Var. cusickii                Cusick’s serviceberry or Cusick’s shadbush

Var. pumila                 Dwarf serviceberry or dwarf shadbush

Var. semiintegrifolia   Many flowered shadbush, Pacific service berry, western serviceberry.

All have some ‘synonyms’ listed. Some have several synonyms, often the same synonyms for different species.

USDA Forest Service – Fire Effects Information System is an unlikely title but their article on the saskatoon is excellent. Their distribution information has all four of the varieties mentioned by Slichter in The Columbia Gorge at least possibly occurring in our area. A fifth variety, var. humptulipensis is said to occur only west of the mountains.

USDA has var. alnifolia east to the Dakotas and Nebraska.

The University of Maine says Amelanchier alnifolia var. alnifolia extends much farther east than any other western shadbush. I supposed they meant it was native to Maine but maybe not.

The Salish people had names for nine ‘varieties’.

USDA Forest Service article above refers to Amelanchier alnifolia var. alnifolia as the typical variety of saskatoon.

At this point my notes are a muddle. I have let information about the varieties ‘run together’, not noticing the problem of diverse species and popular cultivars when I was taking the notes until late in the study.

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Here are some of the many common names for Amelanchier alnifolia: saskatoon, western serviceberry, alder-leaf shadbush, chuckley pear, western juneberry, pigeon berry, sugar plums.

Juneberry because the fruit comes on in June or July, shadberry because it comes on with the shad run. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English has ‘chuckley pear’. The term ‘chuckley’ seems to have been applied to several wild fruits including choke cherry and choke plum.

Chuckley pear also Indian pear in Newfoundland.

“EDD chuckley ‘of bread: gritty, badly made’ Ha.” I don’t know what ‘EED’ refers to.

The Free online dictionary’s ‘acronyms and abbreviations’ lists 33 meanings of EED but only one dictionary, “Evasion-English Dictionary”. Seems unlikely, but maybe.

Newfoundland seems to be the only place where Amelanchier alnifolia is called ‘chuckley pear’. They use the synonym Amelanchier Canadensis for A. alnifolia.

Wild Garden says: “Amelanchier canadensis is an eastern version of a. alnifolia. Both are understory shrubs or trees often found growing in clumps in the wild, they live about 60 years.”

The USDA Forest Service fire people say saskatoon is short lived but also mentions one plant 85 years old. Their frequent survival is 6 to 20 years.

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I’ll use the term saskatoon because I like it and because typing out Amelanchier alnifolia var. alnifolia is unpleasant.

Saskatoon is a woody shrub.

Saskatoon occurs from near sea level to timberline.

The general notion of its height seems to run between six and twenty feet but rainyside.com says the largest one thrives in Beacon Rock State Park in Washington [on the Columbia River]. It is 42 feet tall and 43 feet wide. They also say that higher elevation may limit growth to 10 feet. USDA has one 85 feet tall.

The horticulturists say it has a round crown if grown alone. Excellent assonance.

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Buds

USDA-NRCS Natural Resources Conservation Service says floral buds are formed in the first season on branches at least one year old.

Inflorescence

The inflorescence is sometimes said to be a raceme and is sometimes said to be a short cluster. The usual range for the number of flowers in the inflorescence is 3-20 suggesting they got the information from the same source. The University of Maine likes 5-15, Jepson, 3-16. The Encyclopedia of Life goes with the University of Maine. [The  Encyclopedia of Life says it’s a global effort to gather knowledge of the many life forms.]

Often the inflorescence is said to be erect. E-flora says drooping to erect. E-flora also says the inflorescence is ‘leafy or bracted’. None of my photos enlighten me about this comment. I don’t see it.

University of Maine says only the ‘lowest’ is subtended by a leaf.

The sources often mention the slender pedicels for the inflorescence that may or may not be hairy.

Most sources say the inflorescences are ‘apical’, at the end of branches. Burke has ‘lowest’ racemes from leaf axils. The University of Montana says they are in leafy clusters near the ends of branches. Flora of Dempster County says racemes are from leaf axils.

Flowers

NRCS says the flowers appear before leaves appear. Some sources say ‘…while leaves are still expanding.’

The University of Maine says the leaves are usually well developed at flowering. Perhaps this is a distinctive character for A. canadensis.

The leaves are well developed in my photos of buds.

The petals are 5. They are often called strap-like. [E-flora] The shorter length of the petal distinguishes var. alnifolia and var. humptulipensis from var. semiintegrifolia and var. cusickii. “A. cusickii flowers 10-15 days before A. alnifolia, which suggests that these two are genetically distinct.” Rainyside.com says A. alnifolia has smaller flowers and rounder leaves than A. semiintegrifolia.

I have few photos of blossoms. Petal length in all photos seems to be similar so one or the other, not both present. I presume the plants I photography are Amelanchier alnifolia var. alnifolia.

University of Montana says the petals create a star-like shape around a green center.

Some say there are 15-20 stamens. Burke 12-20. Jepson 10-20.

[[The University of Maine specifies that they are not andropetalous. That doesn’t seem very helpful but it does introduce an interesting notion. Apparently in some plants the stamens can become petals? The definitions speak of double flowers.]]

There are 5 styles. The styles are sometimes joined, sometimes separate almost to the base. Jepson says 4-5.

The University of Maine says the sepals usually ‘recurve’ after flowering.

The sepals are persistent. You see them on the fruit.

The flowers are hermaphroditic and are self-fertile. They are pollinated, one source says by bees, another says by insects. NRCS says it is primarily self-pollinated but may be cross-pollinated by insects or wind.

Southwest Colorado Wildflowers says the odor is unpleasant. Another source says it is fragrant. I suppose it can be fragrant and unpleasant. I don’t remember an odor.

Fruits begin forming soon after flowers fade.

The ovary is inferior. It has a rounded top. The top may or may not be hairy. It may be woolly.

[[The University of Maine says: “Amelanchier alnifolia var. alnifolia extends much further east than any other western shadbush, and it is distinguished by its round to truncate leaves that are usually glabrous and well developed at flowering, hairy ovary summit, and large fruits.”]]

The Encyclopedia of Life says the ovary of A. alnifolia is ‘… persistently tomentose at the top.’ [Tomentos: Covered with short, dense, matted hairs.]

Jepson says the ovary is 2-5 chambered.

I believe there is one ‘chamber’ to a style. If so there should be 4 or 5 chambers.

Some sources mention a hypanthium, most do not but perhaps they should. Having a hypanthium is typical of members of the Rosaceae Family. The University of Maine says the ‘hypanthia’ are shallowly campanulate [bell shaped]. Jepson says it is bell-shaped to urn-shaped.

The hypanthium is, in effect, the fruit, the pome of the saskatoon or the apple.

Root and Branch

The Encyclopedia of Life says the saskatoon has a massive root crown and horizontal and vertical rhizomes.

USDA Forest Service fire people also mention a massive root crown and specify one that was measured 4 inches (10.5 cm) in diameter and 8 inches (20.7 cm) in length.  

E-flora BC says “ … sometimes spreading by rhizomes or stolons …”. [A stolon is a horizontal stem above ground or near the surface below ground. It is similar to a rhizome, a horizontal stem below ground. New plants develop from their nodes.]

Turner: “Roots spread out forming colonies of gray to reddish brown branched bushes.”

Montana Plant life: Young branches reddish-brown, sometimes hairless, usually flat-silky hair or grayish-wooly then quickly almost hairless, eventually gray barked.

Wild Garden says: The bark itself is interesting, tightly holding the trunk(s) and branches. It has very distinctive vertical lines. It becomes more scaly as the tree matures.

USDA-NRCS: Floral buds are formed in the first season on branches at least one-year-old, and fruit develops the following season (St. Pierre and Steeves 1990).

Branches that are more than four years old may be pruned out in spring for better fruit production and longer life span.

I wonder how one knows a branch is 4 years old without cutting it.

Purdue: The fruit is produced on the previous year's growth and on older wood. Usually young, vigorous branches yield the highest quality fruit.

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Ontario: Twigs twisted to make rope. Hardwood of main branches used to make tool handles. Wood can be made even harder by fire heating, and can be moulded when hot. Stems used in handles and rims and as a stiffening in basket making

Rainyside says: “… the wood was used to make silver-dollar-sized disks for a gambling game, and rigging for halibut fishing lines.”

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Leaves

Montana Plant life says the leaves are alternate with slender stalks, blades often bluish-coated, oval to nearly round, somewhat hairy to very hairy at least on the underside, usually sharply toothed most of the margin or only across the tip.

One other source mentions a bluish-cast to the leaves.

The university of Montana, Missoula; Northern Rockies natural History Guide says the leaves have distinctive parallel veins coming off at an acute angle from the midrib.

Virginia Tech says the veins run out to the teeth.

Jepson says the leaves are alternate or clustered, simple, deciduous and that the stipules are deciduous.

Stipules are characteristic of Rosaceae. No other source mentions stipules on the saskatoon.

I don’t see stipules in my photos but I wasn’t looking for them. The variety of views I have with nodes in them should have held stipules.

USDA-NRCS; Plant Fact Sheet writing of var. semiintegrifolia says it is capable of producing toxic levels of hydrogen cyanide [prussic acid], toxic to ruminants. Its concentration in new leaves varies with variety. Higher levels are present in leaves and twigs during bloom stage. They rapidly decline thereafter.

A source in Canada says the leaves are thin, that they are yellowish orange to reddish-brown in autumn.

They also warn that the leaves and pits contain a poisonous cyanide-like substance that can cause serious health problems. However, they also say that cooking or drying destroys these toxins.

Rainyside.com says var. alnifolia distinguished from var. semiintegrifolia by smaller flowers and rounder leaves.

E-flora says var. humptulipensis has ‘entire’ [smooth] leaf margins to a few tiny teeth while var. alnifolia leaves are usually strongly toothed on the upper half.

The University of Maine has a long description of the leaves with lots of difficult technical language. They say the leaves are conduplicate in bud. [Folded together length-wise.]

They say that Amelanchier alnifolia var. alnifolia extends much farther east than any other western shadbush. It is distinguished by round to truncate leaves that are usually glabrous and well developed at flowering.

Other sources have the flowers developing before the leaves or with the leaves.

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USDA-Forest service: Reproduction is chiefly vegetative, rarely from seed. Seeds are often sterile.

Purdue

Important insects that feed on flower buds, flowers, and fruit include lygus (Lygus sp.), saskatoon budmoth (Epinota bicordana), saskatoon sawfly (Hoplocampa montanicola), apple curculio (Anthonomas quadrigibbus), and a leaf rolling caterpillar (Argyrotaenia quadrifasciana)

Saskatoons are also attacked by various fungi and a few bacteria, but so far no viruses or mycoplasmas are known.

Important diseases include saskatoon-juniper rust (Symnosporangium sp.), leaf and berry spots (Entomosporium sp.), dieback and cankers (Cytospora sp., Nectria sp.), blackleaf and witches broom (Apiosporina sp.), brown rot (Monilinia amelanchieris), and fireblight

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Wild Garden provides recipes for wine, jam, 2 jellies, a relish and ‘spicy serviceberries’.

One source mentioned that saskatoons were used as a preservative in pemmican. Maybe the nasty chemicals were a preservative.

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George Washington planted specimens of Amelanchier on the grounds of his estate, Mount Vernon, in Virginia.

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General information from USDA Forest Service fire people:

Saskatoon is intolerant of deep shade, and declines with canopy closure.

It is common after disturbances such as fire, logging, or insect outbreak.

Saskatoon serviceberry is most vigorous in seral plant communities and prescribed fire can be used to maintain and/or promote seral communities. [Seral plant communities are interim. They are replaced by ‘climax’ plant communities.]

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Anthesis [the onset of the period during which the flower is fully open and functional] is a mass event lasting about 2 weeks. 

Leaves emerge during or just after flowering. Fruits ripen 1 to 2 months later.

The fruit can be harvested all at once. Apparently fruit ‘coming on’ is also a ‘mass event’.

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Photos

The usual disclaimer. The photos were taken over a period of 6 years from two different locations. We walked the 1991 burn in Riverside State Park for 4 years and Drumheller Springs Park for two years.

The photos were taken over a period with from near zero knowledge of botany increasing to a little knowledge and a lot of confusion gained through osmosis.

I had no knowledge of the species and varieties of Amelanchier until my current reading. Early on, we didn’t even distinguish between saskatoon and black hawthorn.

So, unfortunately, it is ‘Reader Beware!’

I did the best I could do with the photos I have and the knowledge I have developed so far. I hope to do better in 2013.

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Plants

100-150

My photos do not show plants with distinctive ‘round crowns’. Perhaps domesticated plants would fill out and appear more regular.

Saskatoon is said not to propagate by seed often. I seem to remember isolated young plants that would probably have been propagated by seed rather than by rhizomes or stolon. I’ll have to watch for that next year.

I think the small plant with two branches in my photograph was close enough to a mature plant to have been propagated by rhizomes.

Buds

230-260

I hope most of these are saskatoon buds. But the buds are not apical [at the end of branches].

The inflorescence seems to be developing at the same time that the leaves are developing.

232 through 247 seem to be leaf buds ‘folded together’. [conduplicate]

Photos 240 and 250 are not likely to be saskatoon but I enjoyed the photo … so here it is.

Inflorescence

310-390

The leaves are clearly well developed before the buds.

The sepals are beginning to ‘recurve’ in 370 and are recurved in 390.

Blossom

410-460

Looking for long petals and short petals that might distinguish varieties will have to be a task for 2013.

The green center surrounded by white petals is obvious.

Stamen and Pistil

470

5 styles are visible. Counting the stamens is a problem. Maybe I see 19. They seem to be organized in two rows.

Leaf

510-595

A blue-cast to the leaves is not distinctive in my photos. But maybe a little. The bluest of these don’t seem bluer than leaves of other plants.

All but one of these photos show ‘distinctive parallel veins coming off at an acute angle from the midrib’ that run out to the teeth of the leaf margin.

Distal: The far end. The distal end of the leaves in the photos are round to slightly pointed to quite pointed. At some time I thought they were all saskatoon leaves and labeled them as such. I strongly doubt the pointed leaves, now. And the more ‘net-veined’ leaf is not likely to be saskatoon.

The teeth on the leaf margins in these photos range from very distinct to almost indistinguishable.

I thought the strangers might be black hawthorn but at least one of my specimens of black hawthorn leaves is very different from any of these leaves.

The leaves in 560 are ‘clustered’. Only Jepson mentioned that leaves were alternate or clustered.

Bug Eggs

610-640

I have no idea what I was photographing. 

Branch

710-740

Perhaps I have recorded red to brown to silver-gray with stretch-marks. I think I’ve seen ‘scaly gray’ elsewhere among the photos.

In the next section the stems turn green on their way to brown. At least that’s how it looks in these photos.

Fruit Early

810-870

I seem to have a record of the green hypanthium swelling and turning red beneath the recurved sepals. The domed ovary is exposed in 820.

I fear that 845 is an intruder. The leaves are parallel veined and indistinctly toothed. But the leaves are distinctly pointed, as in 582 and 585 in the section on leaves.

Fruit

910-940

The photos show fruit colors from green and pink through burgundy and blue-purple.

910 is an attempt to show abundance. I think this plant was somewhat more abundant than others.

Fruit Late

1010-1030

The birds don’t clean their plate.