Plant · P-389

Chokeberry Red

Aronia arbutifolia

Red Chokeberry is a suckering shrub of wet, low ground that carries bright red berries from autumn well into midwinter - birds and game only take them occasionally, so the fruit hangs on the branch far longer than most. Raw fruit is astringent, though some ripens sweet after a hard frost, and it cooks well into jam, jelly and syrup or dries for storage. Profuse white flower clusters draw insects in spring, and the shrub turns a rich orange-red in autumn. It spreads on its own by root runners into a widening thicket, useful as free hedgerow stock as long as it is given room or a mown margin.