Amelanchier × Sorbus hybrid

Survives zone 3 through 7

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Small pome between serviceberry and rowan; mild, sweet-astringent. ⚠ Not just astringent: raw fruit in this group contains parasorbic acid, which causes vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea if you eat any quantity of it. Cooking, freezing, drying or a hard frost converts it to harmless sorbic acid — which is exactly why every traditional recipe cooks it and why the fruit is picked after the first frosts.

Hardiness

Zone 3–7

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

July–Aug

Mature size

Shrub/small tree 2–5 m

Light

Full sun to partial

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Montane

Native range

Wild-origin intergeneric hybrid, Amelanchier × Sorbus, recorded where the parents meet in the Pacific Northwest of North America — Idaho, Oregon and neighbouring states.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

Moderate

Spacing

300 cm (118 in) apart — about 9 m² (97 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Intermediate between its parents and variable: oval and serviceberry-like at the tip of the shoot, but often lobed or partly divided toward the base, hinting at the rowan side of its parentage.

Root system

Shallow, fibrous and suckering — the plant spreads into a multi-stemmed thicket by root shoots. That habit is how it is usually propagated, and the reason a single plant becomes a colony unless the suckers are removed.

Fruit description

Small dark purple pome intermediate between a serviceberry and a rowan berry, edible but sparsely produced — this is a botanical curiosity rather than a fruit crop, and plants are scarce in cultivation.

Propagation

Grafting or rooted suckers. Seed is unreliable, as in most intergeneric hybrids, and would not come true in any case.

Pollination

Self-fertile/apomictic

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.