Field Notes—

Things To Do When The Shadblow Blooms

By Dottie Evans

The shadblow is blooming. Time to plow, time to go fishing, time to baptize the baby. Maybe also, time to get married.

It is hard to imagine in this technology infused world that there was once a way of life when people were not inside all day. When daily activity aimed at earning a living and putting bread on the table did not revolve around an alarm clock, an appointment calendar, a commuting schedule, and putting in a five-day workweek at the office. When quality outdoors time was not restricted to weekends and vacations.

We used to be more in tune with nature — and it wasn’t only for aesthetic reasons. New England farmers knew it made good sense to follow nature’s lead, and they’ve handed down plenty of folk wisdom to prove the point.

Get up by cock’s crow. Go to bed when it’s too dark to find your way back from the barn.

Listen for the boom-crack of pond ice breaking up, then pull in your trap lines.

Wait to plant peas until lilac leaves are the size of a mouse’s ear.

Make hay when the sun shines. Pay attention to when the cicadas start singing, because the first frost of the year will be three months later.

Begin spring plowing when the shadblow blooms.

Shadblow is a native woodland tree common to moist areas and shaded stream borders. For one glorious week at the end of April, shadblow covers itself with star-shaped white flowers whose appearance before the lilac or dogwood blooms used to be synonymous with spring’s arrival.

These days, we tend not to notice this rather ethereal, slender tree, because it grows naturally in the most out-of-the-way, wild places. Also called serviceberries and tagged with their botanical name, Amelanchier, young shadblow trees may be purchased in garden centers. But they are often overlooked in favor of the exotic, colorful nonnative ornamentals like forsythia, pink magnolia, and weeping cherry.

Prized for its delicate blossoms, its mass of berries that the birds love, and its brilliant fall color, shadblow is described in nursery catalogs as an “excellent small yard tree.” But there is so much more to say regarding its history and folklore.

The name shadblow was probably coined during the Colonial era, because its bloom coincides with the shad run up major East Coast rivers like the Connecticut and the Housatonic. In early spring, these fish would leave their Atlantic coastal habitat to swim inland, returning upriver to ancient spawning grounds where Native Americans and then the European settlers trapped, netted, and speared them in huge numbers.

Shad (and shad roe) was eaten locally in the colonies, and it was salted, dried, and kept in barrels for later use or shipment to Europe. It is said that Connecticut shad helped feed soldiers in the Continental Army under General George Washington, and there are records of shad runs entering the Housatonic and its tributaries as far upstream as “Lover’s Leap” in New Milford.

In the 18th Century as many rivers were dammed for waterpower, the shad were eventually prevented from completing their annual migration. Nevertheless, some fishermen noted the shadblow bloom and would seek out the free-flowing streams where the fish could still be found.

Also known as Juneberry, shadblow puts out its pemmicanlike berries in June. Native Americans pounded the fruit with meat and dried it, and colonists harvested the berries to make pies and sweet breads, or they dried them like raisins.

Its name serviceberry morphed into “sarviss” tree in the South, and may have resulted from people’s connecting the bloom with the return of itinerant preachers who had stayed away from the more remote villages during the winter months.

With the preacher in town, all those baptisms, weddings, and burials that were delayed by frozen ground could be sanctified — and a few sprigs of white-flowering serviceberry were cut for the sake of ceremony.

If you know where to look for it, shadblow is not all that hard to find, especially during the last week in April when you might see it by a pond or along a shoreline amongst other trees that have not yet fully leafed out.

The juncos have gone north, the wren is back burbling in the lilac bush, red-wing blackbirds are singing in the cattail swamp, and the robin in the rhododendron is sitting on her clutch of four eggs.

Time to drop everything, pick up the hoe, and till the garden. Plant your lettuce while the shadblow blooms.