North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@gmc.ulaval.ca>]

A 02:24 10.11.27 -0500, vous avez écrit : 
>>>>
Also, on the topic of sour cherries, anyone try (out-of-hand or in
preparations) Prunus pensylvanica (pin cherry; fire cherry)?  How does it
compare to Prunus virginiana (choke cherry) - I'm pretty sure that it is
more x-knot resistant then the later.  Any advantages to this fruit, even
if subtle, over just planting a typical Eurasian sour cherry: P. cerasus?
As for non-native sour cherries (really plums), I don't have a lot of good
things to say for P. tomentosa, P. jacquemonti (sic?), and some others -
although the later dried is pretty ok.  Just rather be conventional here
and go with a traditional P. cerasus.  But I'm looking forward to trying P.
pensylvanica - then P. virginiana (which I'd never grow since I don't want
to start an outbreak of x-knot for my cherry trees or the neighborhood
cherries the same.)
<<<<

Steve,
Here in Quebec, both P.pennsylvanica and virginiana grow wild around my
orchard and on my property and are everywhere. Both get the black knot but
don't seem overly affected by it.
Fruit from both species are about the same size and none have much flesh.

virginiana: ripens september, color very dark, almost black, very
astringent, small tree. Bears and racoons eat them.

pennsylvanica: ripens early - end July to mid August here, bright red
color, less astringent but more acid, gets to be a fairly high tree (50 ft
and over). Mostly for birds as the fruit is too high to pick.

Honestly, I don't enjoy eating any of them...

Claude