These are the absolute berries!

September 1, 2006 8:39 PM

What kind of berries are these? (Flickr)

Found growing on City Island in NYC.

posted by hermitosis to Science & Nature (6 answers total)

Best answer: It's a porcelain berry vine. It's pretty, the berries turn all colors as they mature, but it's awfully invasive in many climates.
posted by donnagirl at 8:53 PM on September 1, 2006

Response by poster: I knew someone would swoop in and answer in one stroke. Thanks!

I'm not planning on planting any; I just hate posting photos without offering an ID. And being from Arizona, I'm constantly astonished at all these plants that seem totally alien to me.
posted by hermitosis at 9:05 PM on September 1, 2006

That is the coolest berry plant I've ever seen.
posted by Savannah at 10:43 PM on September 1, 2006

I didn't know that Crunchberries grew on a vine.
posted by kimdog at 5:20 AM on September 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

Man, it's fascinating just how much people hate this vine ... (thread in donnagirl's link). Looks beautiful, but evidently this plant is just totally obnoxious. I'm assuming that the berries are either not edible or just not worth the trouble?
posted by jbickers at 8:06 AM on September 2, 2006

Actually, the berries are apparently edible, but I myself haven't sampled them. I had a porcelain berry vine in the yard of my previous home, and the birds loved it. In some ways, it was prettier for the birds it attracted than for its berries. I didn't find it invasive (zone 6, maybe our winters are just cold enough to keep it in check), although it did grow crazy fast. It just needs something like an arbor to grow over, like you'd have for clematis. I think the vitriol in that thread was a quite bit more than my experience would warrant.
posted by donnagirl at 9:02 AM on September 2, 2006