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Amelanchier sanguinea (Pursh) DC.

Modern name

Amelanchier sanguinea (Pursh) DC.

Synonyms

Pyrus sanguinea Pursh; A. rotundifolia Roem.

A deciduous shrub 3 to 10 ft high, straggling or erect, sometimes spreading by suckers and forming dense thickets of stems; or a small tree to 20 ft high. Leaves oval or oblong to almost rounded, 1 to 234 in. long, blunt or acute at the apex, densely downy beneath when unfolding, later glabrous, margins rather coarsely toothed almost to the base of the leaf. Flowers white, to about 114 in. wide, in loose racemes; top of ovary densely downy. Fruit juicy, purplish black, with a glaucous tinge.

Native of eastern N. America from S. Quebec to N. Carolina.

var. grandiflora (Wieg.) Rehd. A. sanguinea f. grandiflora Wieg. A. amabilis Wieg. – Flowers to 134 in. across, the lowermost on stalks up to 135 in. long. Such forms are considered by Jones (op. cit.) to be part of the normal variation of the species.

A. gaspensis (Wieg.) Fern. A. sanguinea var. gaspensis Wieg. – This species is confined to a small area of Canada around the St Lawrence estuary. It is unusual in bearing its flowers when the leaves are fully expanded; the leaves, too, are more rounded at the apex than in A. sanguinea, truncate at the base, and the flowers smaller, to 34 in. wide at the most.


Genus

Amelanchier

Other species in the genus