North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 09:32 AM 9/19/2003 -0700, Boyd wrote:
> The berries even stay on the tree
> hidden from birds for weeks before they drop and
> spoil.

The birds here are well acquainted with them, and know what to do with 
them, as well.  The heaviest fruiting one in the park here was loaded with 
fruit, and I had stopped by a couple of times and picked a few of the 
fruits that were close to being ripe.  Birds were very active in the 
tree.  When I went back, just 2 or 3 days later, they had picked it 
clean.  They seem to just peck the pulp off, as the ground was littered 
with thousands of 'naked' seeds.

Lucky