Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/717894
www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower SEPTEMBER 2016 15 By any other name… A melanchier is one of those plants blessed with a lot of common names. Plant registry data- bases and academic literature are peppered with references to them and the attached folklore. The common name boasting the best traditions is the serviceberry. There are at least three fanciful stories about the root of that moniker. One says early American settlers often didn't bury the dead until the weather warmed and the ground thawed. Travel was easier, too, so memo- rial services were delayed until the serviceberry bloomed. Another version is also related to winter travel. It says serviceberry blooms at the same time Appalachian roads became passable enough for circuit preachers in the region to travel to remote communities to lead church services. A third bit of folklore claims its name is a cor- rupted form of sarvisberry, the name Romans gave to the European mountain ash. Apparently, early American settlers thought the plant's berries resembled sarvisberries. Also named juneberry, it earned that label because its fruit ripens in June. Saskatoon, the largest city in Saskatchewan, is named for the Cree word for the Canadian variety of the plant. It is also known as shadbush, so named because it blooms about the same time a fish species called shad runs in northeastern U.S. rivers. Whatever it is called, an Amelanchier, by any other name, is still an Amelanchier. —D. Weinstock Photo by todd Einhorn A telling comparison: A fourth-leaf d'Anjou on Amelanchier rootstock bearing fruit (left) easily outproduced the barren fourth-leaf d'Anjou on OHxF.87 on the right. w w w. d ave w i l s o n . c o m 800-654-5854 And Everything In-Between We've Got You Covered! Apricots Nectarines Pluots ®