bush I don't know--solved: wild raisin

[sprucebunny]

I was on a highbush cranberry hunt and found this bush with berries.
It's about 8 feet tall. Berries seem to be blue when ripe and have one large seed.





Thanks

[SwampDonkey]

Same genus. Viburnum cassinoides  wild raisin. They will dry up like a raisin after ripening. Edible and sweet when ripe. Food of grouse. Leafstalks winged.

[sprucebunny]

Thanks, SD.

Do people make jam out of them or anything

It seems odd to me that the same genus has such different leaves

[SwampDonkey]

They don't here, where I live because there are none in our soil type. Any I find up in the next county occasionally, are too sparse to pick from. I think they would if they could pick them in big bunches like pictured in your photo.  I think you'd have to do jelly like the high-bush cranberry.

Yes, hobblebush that grows under hardwood has a round leaf, another in the same genus. I believe it's all to do with the flowers being arranged in flat-topped cymes.

Watch out for the bears.

[Roxie]

I've never heard of (or seen) a wild raisin.  Are they just found in the north?

[LeeB]

 

I've never heard of (or seen) a wild raisin.  Are they just found in the north?

PA ain't in the north?

[SwampDonkey]

V. cassinoides grows as far south as northern Georgia, Tenn and Alabama on higher ground. West to Ontario and down to Ohio, New England and Maritimes in the east.

V. nudum is more prominent in the south, with more glossy, leathery leaves, bitter fruit.

Just going by Peterson's Field Guide.

I find it here in open woods under aspen/balsam fir growing on red clay, where it's damp ground in wet season.

[sprucebunny]

My woodlot is 40 miles north of where I've lived all my life and I had never seen either the highbush cranberry or the wild raisin untill I had that land. It must be picky about soil type.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, I think it has an affinity for soil type. I never see it where I live either. But I've seen it in poplar swamps up north and I'll see high bush under wet aspen ground, but also about any fence row or abandoned orchard because of the birds I suppose. Up where my uncle lives along the river they can't get high bush cranberry to grow it dies out in that sandy loam at his place. I've got one out on the lawn and in my old orchard I cleared out behind the house and along wet places on the woodlot.

[Roxie]

Lee...there's north and then there's "north"!