North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

My memory is from 20 years ago, and I mostly ate the fruit from one large tree that grew outside the laundry room.  But yes, I think all three of us are talking about the same tree, and probably there is some variation in the size of the fruit, but it's always a small amount of somewhat bitter but very tasty black fruit over a relatively large pit.  I well believe the results of jam-making were worth the effort.

Alas, I think Princeton University cut down that tree to build more housing.

Ginda

On Nov 27, 2010, at 9:23 AM, Kevin Moore wrote:

I'm not sure of the exact species, except the description of black cherry exactly coincides with what are called black cherry here, except for the size. The black cherries here are very sweet, slightly bitter and have a thin layer of pulp over the pit. Except they are about the size of a ripe elderberry. Very tiny fruit. I have often thought how nice it would be to breed a large cherry with them to perhaps get a standard size cherry with a very tiny pit.

On Nov 27, 2010, at 10:11 AM, william Eggers wrote:

I don't know if we are talking about the same thing, but we make what we call wild cherry jelly.  The cherries are small and black and the tree is large.  Some of them are over 70 feet tall.  Is this what you are talking about?

Bill Eggers
Iowa Z5a

--- On Sat, 11/27/10, Jwlehman@aol.com <Jwlehman@aol.com> wrote:

On Nov 27, 2010, at 11:00 AM, V. Michael Bove, Jr. wrote:

Some of those have more flesh and juice than you recall.  There was a particularly nice stand of them near where I used to live and I made jam from them a few years.   The process is as you might imagine not especially efficient but if you're patient the results are worth it.
Michael Bove
Teakettle Farm, Z6 (MA/RI border)