A chokecherry by any other name would taste as bad. And it has many other names, including: bird cherry, chuckleyplum, sloe tree, bitterberry, jamcherry, chokeberry, cabinetcherry, rum chokecherry, whisky chokecherry and black or red chokecherry. It also borrows location names like eastern, western, Virginia, and California chokecherry. And then there’s the scientific name Prunus virginiana. All these names speak to the assumption that you would choke if you tried to eat their berries because they are really bitter and astringent until they are fully ripe. In early May, though, their clusters of tiny white flowers are a feast for the bees and other pollinators. The flowers will produce clusters of pea-sized berries in the fall that turn black when they’re fully ripe.
Common chokecherries are growing in the fence row on Owl Acres. They grow as a relatively small tree—up to 30 feet tall–often with multiple stems that look more like a shrub than a tree. The plant can claim space by sending up shoots from its roots as they spread out from the central trunk. They form a thicket of slender stems and a wide and tenacious root system. This spreading root system makes them useful in landscapes where there’s a need for erosion control. They’re also used in shelter belts, wind breaks and wildlife plantings. Their position in our north fence row helps block that north wind on a cold winter day, and their little cherries feed wildlife well into the winter.
Birds also help spread the chokecherry far and wide as they consume the berries and deposit the undigested seeds hither and yon.
Chokecherries are native to North America and have a long history of use by the people who live here. For centuries they have been used as food. A mature chokecherry shrub can produce 30 to 40 pounds of fruit. The pits in the chokecherries contain a weak acid called hydrocyanic acid (AKA prussic acid). This makes them smell like almonds when crushed. Boiling or drying the seeds will neutralize the acid and make them safe to eat.
Native Americans used the chokecherries as food. One method was to grind the cherries, seeds and all, and form the resulting mash into thin patties which they dried in the sun. Drying the chokecherries neutralizes the acid and makes them taste sweeter. Later the dried cherries could be mixed with pulverized roots and sap from boxelder or maple trees to make a tasty (if gritty) pudding.
The chokecherries were also mixed with dried meat and fat to make pemican, which was dried and stored for winter or traveling food. Ideal drying conditions included a breeze and sunny weather with temps in the 80s to 90s. It would take four or five ideal days to dry them completely.
Today, chokecherries are primarily used to flavor jellies, juices and syrups.
Aside from eating chokecherries, Native Americans used them as medicine. A tea made from the inner bark was used to combat diarrhea and several other maladies.
The wood of the chokecherry is strong, flexible and slow-burning. Native Americans used it for bows and arrows, or to make hoops and bullboats (small boats made of a wooden frame covered with a buffalo hide).
Today, the residents of Lewistown, Montana celebrate the chokecherry to welcome autumn. The day-long festival is held the first Saturday after Labor Day. Judges taste and rate all kinds of chokecherry uses in everything from jelly to pies, and chokecherry pit spitting contests end up with the winners being crowned chokecherry king and queen.
Here on Owl Acres, we’ll try collecting some this fall and maybe make a little jelly to see how they taste. We’ll leave most of them for the birds though.
Photo by Author. Alt text: Dense clusters of tiny white flowers with yellow centers (several hundred individual blossoms) adorn the end of a green leafy twig. Hundreds such twigs on this one shrub, make many thousands of flowers, each a potential fruit. Not all flowers will succeed to produce choke cherries, but for now they all provide an abundance of nectar and pollen for spring insects, especially clouds of tiny bees.