North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Stefan Brandle <sbrandle@cse.taylor.edu>]

Hi. I'm traveling through Europe with the family. The oldest one spends
most of her time on the train reading books. I occasionally have to
close her book and look out the window at the pretty mountains. She
looks up, says "Cool", and returns to her book. The younger one keeps
exploring the train. My wife stares at the landscape and tells the
youngest not to be too noisy. I watch the plants.  :-)

I've seen too many things to mention all in my brief chance to hop on
the Internet, but the thing I've noticed most is lots and lots of
corylus (of unknown varieties) in the wild and in people's gardens. In
the US, corylus is pretty rare. Here, it's a standard part of the
landscape throughout Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark (my current trip).

I also noticed a set of unknown actinidia planted at a train station
near Copenhagen. My immediate reaction was that I must be wrong, but
closer examination made me pretty sure. No fruit, but then much of
Europe seems to have had a late freeze this year, sort of like the
Easter freeze we had last year.

The Danish black current tastes like a black current, but the raw flavor
is much less disagreeable than what I've tasted in the US. Once again,
no idea what the variety is. I also notice that most of the apples on
the trees growing here in Denmark appear to be relatively unblemished,
even in places where I doubt they are getting sprayed. It may be that it
is too cold for the bugs. If so, that's one small consolation for having
to deal with such cold winters.

Oh, and there are lots of figs planted everywhere. At my cousin's place
near Zurich, he has quite a big fig tree. He trims it back a bit in the
fall and drapes some sort of cloth tent over it, but that appears to be
about all the protection it gets. It is also on the east side of the
house and only a few feet from the house, so that might help. But it
could also be made of sterner stuff that what I've seen around the midwest.

I'm currently in southern Germany and noticed what looks like serious 
fireblight on some apple trees by a play park this morning. Don't know 
whether the trees will shrug it off or not. I didn't take a picture yet 
of this, but I also saw what looks like a full-blown sambucus tree. I've 
always just seen them as bushes, but this was up to the top of a 
two-story building. A quick peek at wikipedia confirms that it is 
possible, although not common.

I'm on my way to one year in Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar, so
I hope that my next report will be about local mangos, avocados,
lychees, etc.

Happy plant thoughts to everybody!

-- sb