Slender white flowers hang in clusters. Amelanchier, with five pistils divided from pale green bases and 18 stamens. In the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace, just in front of Palaceside Building in Takebashi, Tokyo, it delights visitors east of the Ote rest area.
In kanji it is written "亜米利加采振木." "Sai" (采) means a rod about 30 cm long with paper or animal hair hanging in a long strip — the "saihai" (baton) warlords once used to command troops or in falconry. The name comes from flowers that look like a waved baton.
After the flowers fade, fruit becomes noticeable from around May; they redden like cherries, then by around June turn deep red-purple. Ripe fruit is edible, sweet and delicious, popular as jam. Because they are harvested in June, they are called juneberry in America and elsewhere.
There is also serviceberry without "America" in the name; those bear blue-purple fruit in autumn, and some say they taste like apples. The flowers are similar, but petals and how they hang resemble shide — folded white washi paper hung like shrine ropes, a yokozuna's kesho-mawashi rope, or sakaki tamagushi — giving the alias shidezakura.
They bloom around the same time as cherry blossoms and the flowers are charming, yet serviceberries sadly are not celebrated enough for hanami. Still, names echo auspicious old things like batons and shide, they bear delicious fruit, and autumn foliage is beautiful — they deserve more attention, don't they?