North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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

I've seen quite a lot of interesting things and have neither the memory 
nor the time to report them all, but here are some more thoughts.

Danube apricots: while visiting in Bavaria, they gave me some apricot 
juice to drink and explained that it was a great Austrian specialty from 
along the Danube. They said that the fruit was huge (and used hand signs 
to show something the size of a small apple), picked at perfect 
ripeness, non-shippable because of delicateness, and absolutely 
incredible in flavor. Because it has to ripen on the tree, and because 
ripe ones don't pick and don't last long, they must be picked and the 
right time and processed (or eaten!) quickly. The apricot juice/nectar 
flavor was really good. I would love to try the actual fruit, but 
Austria is not on my schedule. But there are good articles online and 
google images has pictures:
http://www.waldviertel.or.at/tiscover/pressecorner.asp?medium=PCN&sprache=d&archiv=&id=55478&tt=PCN_R19
(English search) 
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=wachau+apricot&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
(German search -- better pictures, but text is German) 
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=wachau+Marillen&btnG=Search+Images

Carpathian Walnuts: these are everywhere in Germany (that I was), lots 
in Switzerland and some in France. The German generic word for nut tree 
(Nussbaum) refers to the Carpathian walnut. Some of the trees are very 
large, compared to anything that I've seen. I took some pictures of 
trees taller than a 4-storey building. Don't have time to upload 
pictures now, but I'll try later.

I saw a 2-storey elderberry (sambucus ?): I went back and took pictures 
and ask locally about what it was and the answer was elderberry (don't 
remember the German name right now, begins with an 'H'). Really amazing 
to see it that big.

There is a mulberry in London with leaves the size of my hands. The 
fruit is redish, very juicy, and about the size (length and width) of 
the last two segments of my index finger. I don't think it was totally 
ripe. Have pictures, will try to post later.

Last (taxi is about to arrive), I saw a whole bunch of cedrus ? in 
Switzerland. Altitude was about 800-1000 feet. People appear to be very 
fond on them and use them abundantly in landscaping. Some are blueish 
(color of a blue spruce) and some are more the color of the cedrus 
libani that I've seen. Didn't get to ask about the variety.

-- sb