A rather large family, widely distributed, including many attractive
trees and shrubs, such as Mountain Ash and Hawthorn, as well as Pears
and Apples, with pretty blossoms and conspicuous, often edible fruits;
leaves alternate; stipules small; flowers regular, perfect, single or
in clusters; calyx usually five-toothed or five-lobed; petals mostly
five, usually with claws; stamens numerous, or rarely few, separate,
with small anthers; ovary inferior and compound; styles one to five.
The calyx-tube gradually thickens and becomes a "pome," or apple-like
fruit, in which the core is the ovary.
There are several kinds of Amelanchier, of the north temperate zone;
shrubs or trees, with thornless branches and white flowers, usually
in clusters; calyx-tube bell-shaped, with five narrow sepals; petals
five; stamens numerous, on the throat of the calyx; styles two to five
in number, united and hairy at base; ovary wholly or partly inferior;
fruit small and berry-like. The name is from the French for the Medlar.
These shrubs are called Shadbush in the East, because they bloom just
when the shad are beginning to run in the rivers.
[Illustration: Golden Currant--Ribes aureum.]
[Sidenote: =Service-berry, June-berry=
_Amelánchier alnifòlia_
=White
Spring, summer
West, etc.=]
A pretty shrub with woody, branching stems, reddish twigs and smooth,
bright green leaves, sometimes downy on the under side, toothed
only at the ends. The flowers, less than an inch across, have long,
narrow, straggling petals, and are so mixed with leaves, and crowded
so irregularly on the branches, that the effect is rather ragged. The
roundish, pulpy, black fruit is liked by the Indians, but though sweet
is insipid. When thickets of this shrub are in bloom on mountainsides
the effect is very pretty, especially in Utah, where the shrubs are
more compact and the flowers less straggling than in Yosemite, giving
at a distance much the effect of Hawthorn. It grows as far east as
Nebraska and in British Columbia.