North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[mIEKAL aND <dtv@mwt.net>]

While we were visiting the botanical gardens in Cluj, Romania, we 
discovered that they had a variety of rosa rugosa growing everywhere,  
The fruit were smaller than what I grow here, but a bit sweeter & more 
flavorful.  My son was picking & eating them when someone came up to 
him & told him in broken english that they were very bad for him & they 
were quite poisonous.  He said he knew this because he had learned it 
from his grandmother.  So much for the old ways.


On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 11:38 PM, Bob Sorenson wrote:

> In my business I pick wild berries every year and often I get stopped 
> and
> hassled by well meaning but not well educated people who are too 
> willing to
> think that I don't know what I am doing. They will insist that I am 
> going to
> poison myself and after a couple of years of trying to be nice to these
> types of folks I hit upon a great plan: Now I simply tell them that I 
> have
> been hired by the local govt. authority to scour the urban/wildlands
> interface to pick all of the dangerous berries and dispose of them in 
> order
> to protect children, dogs and desperate poor people.
> This is suprisingly satisfying to myself and the duped and it means 
> more
> elderberries for me!
>
> bob sorenson