Plant · P-392

Chokecherry

Prunus virginiana

Chokecherry is a thicket-forming shrub or small tree whose dark fruit is too harsh to eat raw but makes excellent pies, jellies and syrup once cooked, with a seed sweet enough for pemmican when it is not bitter. Its fruit is a major food source for birds, bears, moose, coyotes, deer and bighorn sheep, so it is worth siting away from crops those same animals would otherwise raid. It spreads readily by root sucker into thickets that colonize disturbed ground, and it is named an excellent pioneer species for erosion control and reclaiming worn-out fields. It needs a real winter and struggles through long, hot summers, and new growth and frost- or drought-damaged leaves turn poisonous to cattle and people alike.