North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[list@ginda.us]

While looking for wild blueberries that weren't quite ripe in the lakes 
region of New Hampshire last week, my husband and I came upon a a small 
tree bearing fruits that looked a lot like blueberries.  It was near 
peak, with lots of ripe berries and lots of ripening berries.  The tree 
was about 15' tall, with a central trunk about 2-4" thick (not very 
round).  It was growing on the edge of an island, leaning out over the 
lake.   The bark was smooth.

The leaves were "leaf shaped" simple leaves, a little bigger than the 
wild blueberries, but within the range of sizes I've seen for domestic 
highbush blueberries.  They were softer in texture than a blueberry 
leaf - less leathery - and has tiny sharp serrations pointing towards 
the tip.  Each little point was a couple of millimeters long (maybe 
less) and they were fairly uniform.

The berries were large for wild blueberries, although smaller than 
domestic blueberries.  They grew in loose clusters of about 20 or more, 
and each berry has a prominent blossom scar, with long "tags" of skin 
around it.  We each ate a couple fresh, and they tasted similar to 
blueberries, but not as good.  A couple days later, when neither of us 
got sick, we ate a lot more.  They were pleasant, but seedy and a bit 
bland.  They were not terribly popular around the table, but that may 
have been partly because I couldn't say for sure what they were.

My first guess is some kind of service berry, although it didn't 
exactly match any of the ameliamchor in the only tree book I could 
find.  I have a good photo of a twig with fruit that I can e-mail to 
anyone who wants to take a stab at identifying it, but I don't know how 
to post to NAFEX space, and I think we are requested not to send 
attachments to this list.

Thanks for any ideas,
Ginda