Service

This is the best year I remember for downtown serviceberries, or perhaps the slowdown of human life (or retirees' lives, anyway) caused by the coronavirus pandemic is allowing more time to notice the life around us. Back when I mostly saw them while whizzing along I-77 on my way to work, Amelanchier were ho-hum early trees, blooming on Appalachian hillsides along with the first redbuds but not nearly as exciting or welcome as the later-blooming dogwoods. 

Nuts to that. 

Humans in North America have made use of these small trees for a long time, as the variety of common names suggests. "Saskatoon" comes from the Cree name for one species of Amelanchier, and the berries were an ingredient in pemmican, a preserved staple in the diets of some indigenous peoples.  In New England, they were "shadblows," their bloom time coinciding with the running of that early fish species. In Appalachia, "sarvis" or serviceberry was related to the time when circuit-riding preachers (like my maternal grandfather) could use the mountain roads to get to rural communities to perform funeral services for those who had died over the winter. "Juneberry" refers of course to the time when the edible fruit ripens, well before the raspberries that come along in high summer. 

But the tree is not useful only to humans. Go outside now, to any blooming serviceberry, and you will find bees working the bloom clusters. A good year for serviceberry is also likely to be a good year for the tiny blue butterflies known as spring azures, which feed on the nectar. More importantly, the plant hosts over 100 species of butterfly and moth larvae, including those of the tiger swallowtail and luna moth (assuming, of course, that the trees are not sprayed to prevent insect-chewing). The berries attract multiple species of birds, including robins, orioles, catbirds, and cedar waxwings, a flock of which once stripped a neighbor's thirty-year-old serviceberry in less than an hour--but what a show.

And despite my former dismissal of Amelanchier's aesthetic value, when you take the time to look, the blooms of this shrubby little tree are beautiful.

Service on lots of levels.