Identification of berries

[arrowti]

I've been watching a berry bush/tree blooming this year. They started out green and began to turn red, and now have turned black. I took some pictures of the 'tree' and the berries of varying colors. I picked a few to look at them and they were drenched by water, and became sticky. When I 'squished' them, they had a large white pit and purple flesh. (I say tree because of its massive size... but it appears to be a large number of 'small trunks' growing from a base, all carrying download sloping branches with non-clumping berries. (Ignore the branches in front, it's the small trunks behind it that I'm talking about).

The berries are high and low, scattered across the branches, but not close together. One little twig per berry.

Some of these branches carrying fruits are over 10 feet high!
Close up of the berries

I want to try some, but I'm worried they could be a toxic plant (such as black nightshade). On the other hand, they could be black wild cherries, or black chokeberries, or something along that line. Any thoughts?

 

[oregonkat]

Try this, I'm not sure but the leaf looks similar:
https://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/plants

 

[oregonkat]

Ugh, the link only takes you to his page. Look under Black Cherry.

 

[lazy gardener]

I have a very similar little bush/tree growing behind my green house. Not sure what the now black berries are, so I tried one, figuring that it just might kill me... or it might help me to discern what they are. Tasty, sweet. With clear flesh, and 2 fairly large seeds in each berry. More of these plants showing up around my property. I'm guessing they are Amelanchier, or June berry. But, the flowers of these bushes did not match June berry... so, I'm not sure.

 

[arrowti]

It does look a lot like wild black cherry... I might try one as well. The largest berry had two seeds as well. From what I read the toxic plants would be bitter and gross. Black berries are 90% edible... if it tastes bad I'll spit it out.

Mine were sickly sweet with a bitterness. Like cough syrup.

I had to eat a bunch of blueberries and blackberries off our bushes to get that taste out of my mouth!

 

[lazy gardener]

Yeah, I wasn't overly impressed with my second taste. But, I do need to find out what they are.

 

[oregonkat]

It does look a lot like wild black cherry... I might try one as well. The largest berry had two seeds as well. From what I read the toxic plants would be bitter and gross. Black berries are 90% edible... if it tastes bad I'll spit it out.

Mine were sickly sweet with a bitterness. Like cough syrup.

I had to eat a bunch of blueberries and blackberries off our bushes to get that taste out of my mouth!

If you are in to it, you could probably make a good liqueur out of them!

 

[Ducklover108]

I've bee

I've been watching a berry bush/tree blooming this year. They started out green and began to turn red, and now have turned black. I took some pictures of the 'tree' and the berries of varying colors. I picked a few to look at them and they were drenched by water, and became sticky. When I 'squished' them, they had a large white pit and purple flesh. (I say tree because of its massive size... but it appears to be a large number of 'small trunks' growing from a base, all carrying download sloping branches with non-clumping berries. (Ignore the branches in front, it's the small trunks behind it that I'm talking about).
View attachment 1488688
The berries are high and low, scattered across the branches, but not close together. One little twig per berry.
View attachment 1488691
Some of these branches carrying fruits are over 10 feet high!
Close up of the berries
View attachment 1488692

I want to try some, but I'm worried they could be a toxic plant (such as black nightshade). On the other hand, they could be black wild cherries, or black chokeberries, or something along that line. Any thoughts?

I've been told to never eat those as they are poisonous we actually have some at my school but our teachers told us to not touch them