North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Martha Davis <martha_davis@earthlink.net>]

On ID for service berries You might look at Michael Dirr's Manual of Hardy Landscape plants.  It's expensive and I wouldn't buy it unless you are interested in it for other reasons, but a library should be able to get it.  He likes service berries to eat and he has good line drawings.  However one of his comments was that they are hard to ID  to species even for professionals.

I am also getting the impression that how well different varieties do depends quite a bit on your own region.  I've heard at least one person say that they think it is more productive to go out in service berry season to explore for good tasting, locally adapted, wild individuals. In flower they are easy to spot and the flowers I think look significantly different from Hawthorn.

Martha Davis