Mountain laurel is **not** shad tree

Well well well. Common names get thrown about and applied pretty randomly, so maybe **some**one calls mountain laurel shad tree, but I'd misunderstood my father: he wasn't saying that mountain laurel = shad tree; he was saying that there's another tree that blooms at the same time that's called that.

Searching on Wikipedia, I find that the genus Amelanchier has several species that get called shad tree or shadbush (they also get called things like serviceberry, a name I know I hear a lot).

As you'll see, there's alder-leaved shadbush, lovely shadbush, downy shadbush ... pick a shadbush to suit your mood! Maybe red-twigged?

But don't confuse it with mountain laurel!

Mountain Shadbush

(source site)