A medium sized tree with a tall slender trunk and small spreading branches which form a narrow, oblong head. The leaves somewhat resemble those of the pear, but are finer and more delicate, covered with a soft, silken down as they come from the bud but becoming smooth at maturity. The flowers are in loose racemes at the ends of the branches.
Flowers: April, when leaves are about one-third grown. Perfect, white, borne in racemes from three to five inches long. Each flower has a slender pedicel, furnished with two lanceolate, purplish silky bractlets which fall as the flower opens.
Fruit: Berry-like pome, depressed - globular or pyriform, open at the summit, crowned with the calyx lobes and remnants of the filaments. One-third to one-half of an inch long, rich purple with slight bloom. Ripens in June, is sweet, with delicious flavour. Seeds dark brown; cotyledons thick.
Uses
The fruit is delicious and ripens in June. But there are few berries.
It is a flowering tree of rare elegance and beauty and worthy to be grouped with the Carolina silver bell, the Dogwood, and the Eastern Redbud.
