Clustered shrub or small tree mostly 2-5 m; lvs soon glabrous or nearly so, broadly elliptic to quadrate-rotund, to 6 cm, mostly 1-1.5 times as long as wide, coarsely toothed and strongly veined as in no. 3 [Amelanchier sanguinea (Pursh) DC.], often toothed only distally or across the broadly rounded or subtruncate summit; fls in short racemes, these mostly less than 2.5 cm in fl, to 3.5 cm in fr; pedicels relatively short, the lowest mostly 5-10 mm at anthesis; sep spreading to recurved, 1.5-3.5 mm; pet mostly 10-20 mm; ovary tomentose at the summit; fr subglobose, ca 1 cm, dark purplish, sweet and tasty. Thickets, borders of woods, and banks of streams; widespread in the w. cordillera and n. Great Plains, reaching our range in w. Minn. and nw. Io., and reputedly with outlying stations in Ont. and even w. Que. May.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.