The old sarvis bloomed a few days ago. That’s Juneberry, Serviceberry, or Amelanchier arborea. It’s an older tree that was damaged when the EMC put in a powerline cut with their bushhogs, thirty-five years ago. It must have been a beautiful tree when it was intact, because it still puts out a very nice show of blossoms. I can see another tree in bloom on a neighboring property. The others on my property haven’t bloomed yet, although the largest one has been showing white tips and trying to bloom for about a week. There’s a little drizzle this morning, which may help, as it has been awfully dry for spring. The soil temperature is about right, as it has been in the low 50s for about a week.
The sarvis comes after those awful Bradford pears – the state of North Carolina actually put a bounty on them a few years ago – and before the dogwoods. They supposedly acquired their name because they are used for altar decorations at Easter if the dogwoods haven’t come yet. They seem to be declining in our range, and not just because ignorant people cut them down, although that’s a lot of it. They seem to need conditions to be just perfect in order to fruit. I’ve seen mine fruit only several times in the past thirty years, so they do not reproduce prolifically, at least in our range. It seems that they may be more prolific up north, as people make jam out of the berries. I’ve never seen a tree locally that had enough berries to even consider making jam.
The bark of young trees resembles that of young maples, but the leaves are elliptical, with a heart-shaped base. Older trees often have bark that’s “furrowed with age into narrow ridges” (Kirkman, Native Trees of the Southeast). The blossoms resemble dogwoods, but are much smaller, about an inch in diameter.
When they flower, it’s my number one sign of spring and it gives me more joy than any other event of the spring. It’s the one thing each year that I never want to miss.
In other news, the redbuds are still going strong, and the crabapples are in leaf, but have not bloomed. Some years the redbuds, sarvis, and crabapples all come at once, but that’s rare. Still no sign of a Mourning Cloak. As far as birding, we’ve started seeing some of the spring migrants coming through. No Orioles or Tanagers yet, but a few unidentified warblers have been in the yard.