Amelanchier × Sorbus hybrid

Photo: Crusier — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

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; 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 2–4 m

Light

Full sun to partial

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Montane

Native range

None — a garden plant with no wild range. It was raised at the Kórnik Arboretum in Poland in 1934, from seed of Amelanchier asiatica received from Sweden pollinated by some pinnate-leaved Sorbus, and not validly described until Browicz and Bugała published the name in 1958. Extremely rare in cultivation.

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 and variable, as in the other Amelasorbus hybrids — simple and serviceberry-like above, tending to lobed or partly pinnate toward the leaf base.

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 pome intermediate between its parents, edible but produced sparingly. Grown as a curiosity rather than for fruit.

Propagation

Grafting; seed is unreliable and does not come true.

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.