Monday, April 4, 2011

Amelanchier On My Mind

Amelanchier buds, Floyd Bennett Garden 

Ever since the day I wondered about a certain bud in Prospect Park and the possibility that it could be a type of Amelanchier (Shadbush, Serviceberry), it seems I can't go anywhere without seeing this tree. Yesterday at Floyd Bennett, I snapped the picture above of an Amelanchier with fat buds planted near the community garden gazebo. And then walking home today, I spied the pretty striped bark below, one of the shadbush's characteristics...


































and looked up and saw these buds opening...



And so I'm still left wondering. Are the buds pictured below from Prospect Park also from an Amelanchier, but another species? I see a bit of a similarity but none of the white fuzziness as on the other opening buds. Now I'm going to have to check out that tree in Prospect Park again to find out.

(Update: The answer is no. The buds below do not belong to the Amelanchier. They possibly belong to another native fruit-baring tree though.)

2 comments:

frank@nycg said...

at this point it could be anything. What's its form?

Sweetgum Thursday said...

well, it was a small tree or shrub... definitely had some berries leftover from last year, which didn't seem to be wild cherries...I didn't notice striped bark, but it was fairly young and small and I was only biking by and just kind of captured by the opening buds in my peripheral vision near a trail.. so I didn't linger that long...just long enough to take a few pictures of the opening buds and wonder what kind of berry producing shrub/tree it was...maybe i'll pass by it again this week and have more details...It was on the east side of the loop, nearing the hill on the bike path if I'm remembering correctly...not too far past the zoo heading north.