Day 207: Identification of Serviceberry has been simplified by a reduction in the number of accepted variety names with most now lumped under Amelanchier alnifolia. There was no need for me to push through the reed-canary grass to get close enough to count stamens, and although I didn't have that information at the time, the thought of ticks was sufficient to prevent me from doing so. There is a limit to what I'm willing to sacrifice in the name of science, and while I am perfectly at ease with getting muddy, filthy, prickled and poked, I draw the line at exposing myself to ticks, and Pack Forest is full of them. That said, it's also full of Serviceberry which, in my opinion, is one of our most lovely native shrubs. The Latin "alnifolia" refers to the leaves which some feel resemble a scaled-down version of Red Alder (Alnus rubra). The lumping of varieties also means that there is no longer the necessity for assessing the amount of serration along the leaf margins. In the argot of Hitchcock, "Controversial, intergrading and unconvincing taxa within A. alnifolia, often based on continuum of pubescence variations or ped. infl. and petal length" excuses me from making a closer examination. So there.
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