North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Moyer, Richard" <ramoyer@king.edu>]

Mark,
We eat sugar/hackberry while out in the winter woods.  They often hang on
well, and when dried are a sweet treat for the kids in dead of winter, to
let the sugars melt in your mouth.  Have read that the hard inside can be
cracked for seed nutrition, apparently birds do this.

The NCGR (in Corvallis) has both Sorbus and Sorbopyrus; Joseph Postman knows
more about this collection.

As regards an earlier post for ginko fruit preparation, we've gathered them
here at a local cemetery, after the mowers have run over them several times
to remove the flesh, yielding a fairly clean 'nut'.  We then bake in the
oven and shell them out.  

Glad you are out exploring fruit at the Seattle Arboretum!  Was recently
sampling Cornus mas at the Cheekwood Arboretum in Nashville. We have found a
number of tasty ornamental apples and haws at the N.C. State J.C. Raulston
arboretum around Thanksgiving.
 
Richard Moyer
East Tenn, Zone 6
Making more apple-kiwi sauce tonight.