Garden shadblow

Amelanchier spicata, commonly called dwarf or low serviceberry, is a deciduous, suckering shrub in the Rosaceae native to eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, where it grows in open woods, rocky slopes, sandy clearings and the edges of bogs. The species is widely naturalised in northern Europe and is sometimes treated as part of a complex with A. stolonifera and A. canadensis. Plants form clonal thickets 0.5 to 2 metres tall with slender, erect, brownish-grey twigs. The simple, alternate, short-petiolate leaves are elliptic to oblong-obovate, 2 to 5 centimetres long, finely serrate at least in the upper half, white-tomentose when young and becoming glabrous and bluish-green at maturity, with reddish-orange autumn colour. Short, dense, upright racemes of five-petalled white flowers about 12 millimetres across open with the unfolding leaves in spring. The fruit is a small juicy pome 6 to 10 millimetres in diameter, ripening from red to dark blue-black with a glaucous bloom and crowned by the persistent calyx lobes; it is sweet and edible.