What kind of bush is this?

October 30, 2006 6:23 AM

Any help identifying this plant? It's a shrub about 10' high and the photo shows what it looks like in October in New England. Bonus points if you can provide a reference about whether it's poisonous or not.
posted by cocoagirl to home & garden (9 comments total)

Looks like chokecherry.

Not poisonous, but the berries have a unique (read: strange and definitely foul) taste. We used to dare each other to eat them as a kid. Old New Englanders sometimes make chokecherry wine. It tastes better than the actual berries.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:47 AM on October 30, 2006

Given the bright red fruit and the stem structure, my vote goes to a Viburnum, quite possibly Viburnum opulus. The berry are very sour (related to cranberries) but not poisonous, and are very attractive to birds as well as being showy in the fall.
posted by vers at 6:52 AM on October 30, 2006

Seconding chokecherry.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 9:05 AM on October 30, 2006

It's a red chokeberry bush. It grows wild all over the place where I live. The birds eat the berries in the winter, but I have no idea if it's poisonous to humans.
posted by Flakypastry at 9:10 AM on October 30, 2006

It's most likely a viburnum. Not sure about opulus. Could be plicatum, "Double-file Viburnum". Berries are the same, but your leaves a very serrated. Birds eat them.
posted by donp17 at 11:01 AM on October 30, 2006

The leaf color and berry growth pattern doesn't match chokecherry. It looks more like red elderberry to me.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:06 AM on October 30, 2006

Viburnum opulus leaves are lobed like a maple, unlike the leaves in your photo.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:06 PM on October 30, 2006

Viburnum opulus leaves are lobed like a maple, unlike the leaves in your photo.

No, no. She knows better than you do. That's why she asked the question.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:45 PM on October 30, 2006

I found (once I had a term to search on) several photos via google that matched the leaf formation of the plant in question and were labeled viburnum opulus. Many of them were german, so maybe it's an import? More likely it is some variation of viburnum and may not be the opulus variation.

The chokecherry images I found were more likely to have a similar leaf structure, but since I was able to find images of the viburnum that matched leaf, flower and fruit structure, it seemed like a better match. The fruit (and the flowers I remember from the summer) of my plant look more like the viburnum than the chokecherry. Here are some comparisons:

Viburnum fruit (firm upright stems w/ individual fruit at each tip)
Chokecherry fruit (droopy stems w/ bunches of fruit)

Viburnum flower (upright w/ a wider spread)
Chokecherry flower (droopy and long)

The usual caveats of me not being a botanist and the web not being a perfect reference source of course apply, so I'm still willing to be convinced otherwise.
posted by cocoagirl at 8:49 AM on November 12, 2006