Shrub or small tree to 10 m tall

Leaves: 4 - 7 cm long, 3 - 5 cm wide, broadly egg-shaped to elliptic with a pointed tip and rounded to nearly heart-shaped base, finely toothed, more or less hairless with few hairs along midvein, having eight to ten pairs of veins interconnecting near the margin. At flowering, the leaves are open but not fully grown, bronze red and nearly hairless.

Flowers: borne on drooping inflorescences (racemes) 3 - 7 cm long, with hairless individual flower stalks to 4.5 cm long. Each flower is white with a reflexed five-lobed calyx, five petals that are 1.5 cm long and inversely egg-shaped, and a hairy ovary tip.

Fruit: berry-like (pome), clustered, 6 - 8 mm across, spherical, containing ten seeds.

Buds: to 1.3 cm tall, narrow egg-shaped.

Form: straggling, not colony-forming.

Similar species: Amelanchier arbora, Amelanchier interior, and Amelanchier laevis are the three Amelanchier species in the Chicago Region that are taller than 3 m at maturity. Amelanchier arborea and Amelanchier laevis both have eleven to seventeen pairs of leaf veins and more or less hairless ovaries.

Flowering: late April to mid May

Habitat and ecology: Frequent in black oak savannas, sandy ridges, lake plains, and dry-mesophytic woods with loamy soil.

Occurence in the Chicago region: native

Etymology: Amelanchier is the old French name of a species in this genus. Interior means inner.

Author: The Morton Arboretum