Amelanchier lamarckii
Juneberry ( Amelanchier lamarckii )
The Juneberry ( Amelanchier lamarckii ), called in northern Germany also Corinth tree, is a deciduous shrub of eastern North America. It is often used because of its white flowers, the coppery tint of the young leaves and the gorgeous Autumn colors as ornamental tree. Its fruits are non-toxic and palatable.
Description
The Juneberry is usually two to five meters high, but can under favorable conditions to a more burly, 10 -meter-high tree with flattened crown grow. The stalked, obovate and regularly and closely serrated edge leaves unfold during the flowering period in late April. They are initially bronze to copper in color and especially hairy hand under tight silvery. The mature leaves are 4-8 cm long and 2-4 cm wide, upper side dull green above, pale blue and green. In autumn they turn bright yellow to orange-red.
The 2 to 3 cm wide, odorless flowers are in upright or inclined slightly overhanging 6 to 12 - flowered clusters. You have five white, narrow petals, 20 stamens and a five -piece at the top of pen. The long -stalked, winning the cup, about 1 cm large, spherical fruits are initially bright purple. At maturity, which occurs depending on the altitude between late June and mid-July, they are blue black and taste pleasantly sweet.
The fruits are eaten by birds as a whole, such as chokes, starlings or pigeons, so that the seeds are spread ornithochor.
Distribution and habitat requirements
The area of origin of Juneberry is located in eastern North America, but where are today no wild plants occurring more known, conforming to the European populations in their morphological features. In the Atlantic influence Western Europe it occurs as a neophyte. Perhaps the species is originated by hybridization with the participation of Amelanchier laevis. Except in North West Germany it is completely naturalized and must be classified as Agriophyt particularly in southern England, northern Belgium and the Netherlands.
Naturalises the Juneberry occurs particularly at the edges of acidophilus oak forests in Central Europe. It tolerates frost and waterlogging as well as temporary drought.
Botanical History and Use
The first description of the kind provided in 1782 the botanist Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart under the name Pyrus botryapium and arranged them so that in the genre of a pear. Only with the establishment of the genus Amelanchier by the German scholar Friedrich Casimir Medicus in 1789, the Juneberry was separated from the pears, but also of loquat and hawthorns, which they had been temporarily also attributed. At the end of the 18th century it was already in many botanical gardens and parks in culture. In the 19th century it was planted in several provinces of the Netherlands and in parts of Lower Saxony and Westphalia by the farmers as fruit trees. Since you pledged the climatic conditions in northwestern Europe, they feral in many places. However, she was mistaken for the, also from North America Amelanchier canadensis and traded until the 1970s, usually under that name. Your currently accepted scientific name Amelanchier lamarckii received the kind only in 1968 by the German botanist Fred -Günter Schroeder. With the epithet the French botanist Jean -Baptiste de Lamarck is honored, who had described the plant in 1783 under the name Crataegus racemosa.
Since the 1960s, the Juneberry is often used for woody plant in city centers and along roadsides. This finding increasing use by breeding modified varieties that are characterized by larger fruits ( cultivar ' Ballerina' ) or pink crowded flowers ( cultivar ' Rubescens ') are distinguished.