North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 08:34 AM 6/23/2004 -0500, you wrote:
> I ran into a landscape planting of serviceberry in Minneapolis, mature
> shrubs loaded with exceptional tasting fruit (to me anyway).  The ripe 
> fruit was cranberry red & there wasn't a blue/purple fruit on the bush. 
> Even the overripe fruit was the same cranberry red color.   Any ideas what 
> species this might be & how long a stratification do these need to germinate?

I've not (knowingly) seen A.canadensis, but all the A.laevis and 
A.xgrandiflora selections, and the one A.obovata I have all have red fruit 
when ripe - they don't get the blue/purple color that the A.alnifolias I'm 
growing achieve.  In a commercially-prepared landscape planting, I'd bet on 
an A.x grandiflora or one of the A.canadensis selections.

I've been unsuccessful in my to attempts to germinate any A.laevis seed, 
but as Lon and myself both noted, only a very small percentage of seed from 
that tree were well-filled, so I don't know how viable they were.

Lucky