North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Title: Re: [NAFEX] mountain ash utility

I found one seedling growing on the other side of the fence, in the neighbor's field, that must have been from my eastern European trees.  It was quite productive, but had a little bitterness.  Not as much as the standard ornamental, by a long shot, but not really enjoyable to eat.  The neighbor removed it, so it doesn't matter.  I'm reasonably sure it was from my trees as I haven't seen any other Mt. Ash in the area.  
    One time someone sent me some dried bear poop from an area where there were a lot of huckleberries.  The droppings were practically pure berry skins and seeds, though there were some other seeds mixed in, including some Mt. Ash, so the bears must either like wild Mt. Ash berries, or there were some that had non bitter fruit in the wild.
-Lon Rombough
>

> Lon,
> Do you have any experience growing the non-bitter eastern European varieties from seed?  I am wondering if Sorbus are like citrus in that most come true from seed, or like apples in that most do not come true from seed.  I am thinking mainly of the bitter/non-bitter characterisitc.  Each year I have many Sorbus seedlings come up around my yard, but none so far is worth keeping even to nibble.
> -Mark Lee, Seattle