Snowy Mespilus

Snowy Mespilus (Amelanchier) - Pretty hardy shrubs and low or medium-sized trees. A. canadensis is one of the best of our flowering trees, and long before it comes into flower it is pretty with its soft brown-grey masses. It is more slender in habit than many of our flowering trees, and often weakened in the crowded masses of the shrubbery. In its own country it varies very much in size, some forms being mere shrubs, whilst others make trees 40 feet and even more in height. In botanic gardens and nursery catalogues we find the names of several other trees of this genius, but there seems to be little distinction among them, and none is quite so good as this, though the one which grows in the Maritime Alps (A. vulgaris) should be worth a place. The Americans have selected some forms of the shad bush, which bear better fruit than the common form; if they would bear it in our own country it would make the bush more valuable. It has also the advantage of being raised very easily from seed, and increases rapidly by suckers. Other American kinds as yet little grown in our gardens are Botryapium, alnifolia, oligocarpa, spicata, and utahensis.