Tree Tuesday: the good service tree

I was too young at the time to recall the discussion regarding the design of the Canadian flag but I’ve often wondered how the sugar maple leaf was decided upon as national symbol. Look on any tree distribution map and it’s clear that this cherished tree of Ontario, Quebec and the maritime provinces — minus Newfoundland — is hardly representative of the entire nation state. Among the prairie provinces, for instance, only Manitoba shows any presence of sugar maples and they grow only along the Canada-United States border.

Had the powers that be in the early 1960s been more concerned with a leaf representing the whole country  — as opposed to Old
Canada, Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes —  they might have chosen the humble but lovely serviceberry tree (amélanchier, Amelanchier, sp.). Like the sugar maple depicted in the Canadian flag, the serviceberry — also known as the Saskatoon berry, June berry, shadbush and Indian pear — turns a striking red in the fall. Unlike the sugar maple, however, the service berry, as represented by one of its 16 species, is found from coast to coast and in both territories. (The only other trees to cover the country so completely are the white/paper birch, the black spruce and the white spruce.)

If, during the coming week or so, you are walking on Mount Royal,  Ile Ste-Hélène or in any other bits of nearby wild forest, you will notice the delicate, rounded, reddish orange, occasionally yellow, leaves suspended in the air like a Japanese brush painting. In fact, in our local forest, the serviceberry is one of the last few strokes of red. You will know the tree by the round-to-elliptical shape of its finely toothed and markedly veined leaves. You may also recognize this small, understory tree — or multi-stemmed bush, as it may also be — by the fine black stripes on its pale grey bark.

Aside from the ornamental value of its leaf and bark, the serviceberry also produces one of the earliest spring flowers; in early May, masses of five-petal (true of all members of the rose family) blossoms cover the tree. Its fruit, which in taste and appearance is somewhat like a large blueberry, is also early, as early as June in the warmer parts of the country. And the wood of the serviceberry’s small trunk, being strong and flexible, used to be prized for making fishing rods and arrow shafts.

For some reason, the fruit of the serviceberry — or petite poire, as it is known in French — seems to have been forgotten Quebec; the tree tends to be planted for its beauty and resilience to cold, drought and shade, not for its fruit. Yet, in Saskatchewan, where the tree is known as the Saskatoon-berry, people make abundant use of the fruit. Robin, a fellow tree-walker and native of Saskatchewan speaks of his aunts and grannies making Saskatoon-berry pies, jams, jellies and cakes.

In fact, the Saskatoon-berry tree, whose name is derived from the Cree word misâskwatômina, gave its name to the city of Saskatoon. The Cree would dry the dark blue fruit and use it as an ingredient in pemmican, the dried and powdered game meat they prepared for travel.

Given the ease of planting and growing this tree — and the fact that it doesn’t take up much space, the serviceberry tree would be another good candidate for the alley-as-orchard. The trees you see in the photo, five trees planted roughly five years ago on either side of the entrance to FACE School of University Street, comprise something of a small orchard although the children are gone for summer by the time the fruit are ripe — to the delight of the birds, no doubt.

Another good inner-city collection of there trees grows in the courtyard between the Otto Mass and Burnside Hall buildings of McGill University. Miraculously, that row of trees is growing in a man-made hill of earth that is no more than a metre high. Underneath it is the patioed rooftop of the underground classrooms.

As you can appreciate, there are many good reasons why the leaf, flower and fruit of the serviceberry tree would have made a fine and representative national symbol. Anyone interested in joining my just-launched serviceberry-on-the-flag movement, may contact me!