Medicinal Monday - Western Chokecherry

The chokecherry is a bush that is native to North America and can be found growing in Connecticut. For many Native Americans, chokecherries are an important fruit in their traditional diet as well as useful medicinally. Like cherries and apricots, the fruit and skin of the chokecherry are not poisonous, rather the seed/pit are. It contains amygdalin which once eaten is metabolized into cyanide, a deadly poison.

About Black Western Chokecherry

Chokecherry is in the rose family and is a native, perennial, deciduous, woody, large shrub or erect tree that can grow up to 30 feet high. The oval-shaped leaves are dark green and glossy above and paler beneath. The leaves are toothed with closely shaped sharp teeth that point outward forming a serrated edge. They turn yellow in the fall. The bark varies from grey to reddish-brown and is distinguished by horizontal rows of raised air pores known as lenticels. As the shrub matures these lenticels evolve into shallow grooves. The flowers are aromatic and arranged in cylindrical racemes and have five white petals. The flowers appear between April and July and the fruits form a few months later. The western chokecherry, Prunus virginiana, demissa produce dark red fruit, there are two other varieties that produce crimson and black fruit. This shrub can be found in a wide range of soil types and textures. It does prefer full sunlight and is generally not found as understory in the forest. It spreads by seeds or rhizomes.

Culinary Uses

The name chokecherry comes from the bitter and astringent taste of the fruit. The fruit was a staple for many Native American communities across the United States. They were routinely cooked or dried, which sweetens them and breaks down the prussic acid in the stone pits. Chokecherries are eaten three ways, by Native Americans. The juice and pulp are eaten. Whole cherries are pulverized, shaped into balls, and dried in the sun for future use, and pemmican, a mixture of the chokecherries, tallow, and dried meat is made and cached as winter food. The bark is brewed like tea. Many communities also add the fruit to soups and stews as a flavoring and as a thickening agent. The Algonquin, Quebec make wine out of the fruit. The Blackfoot use chokecherry soup for most ceremonial events, including the transfer of a tipi design or the opening of a Medicine Pipe bundle or Beaver bundle.

Medicinal Uses

Chokecherry can be found in almost every state except some in the southwest and far west. Because of this large geographic range, many Native American communities used it for its astringent properties and to treat respiratory problems. The Arikara women would drink the berry juice to stop bleeding after childbirth. The Algonquin made an infusion of the bark and sweet flag and took it to treat coughs. The Blackfoot had several uses for chokecherry, they drank the juice for diarrhea, made an infusion of cambium, Saskatoon, and chokecherry, and used it as a purge, they also gave this mixture to nursing mothers to pass medical qualities to babies, and they used the berry juice to treat sore throats. 

The Cherokee made an infusion of the bark and took it to treat colds, coughs, and as an astringent wash for old sores and ulcers and to treat the chills and fever. The Cherokee added a compound of bark to corn whiskey and used it to treat measles. Warm tea was given to women when labor pains began and the leaves and branches were one of the six ingredients burned in sweat lodges to treat jaundice and indigestion. The Paiutes made a medicinal tea from the leaves and twigs to treat colds and rheumatism. The Sioux chewed dried roots and then placed them on open wounds to stop bleeding. The Crows also used the bark to cleanse sores, wounds, and burns.

Did You Know...

In addition to chokecherry trees, apple, peach, plum, apricot, nectarines, cherry, and almond trees are also in the rose family.

Chokecherry is an important source of food for many animals as well as a nesting habitat for a variety of birds. It is used extensively as a food source in the winter for deer. Flowers provide nectar for honeybees, ants, and butterflies.

Fruits are collected today and used to make jam and jellies, sauces, and wine.

Today, chokecherries are popular in gardens as ornamentals. 

In Canada, in the prairie provinces, chokecherries are farmed as a minor crop to produce juice.

Chokecherry is the official fruit of North Dakota because its remains have been found at more archeological sites in the Dakotas than anywhere else. 

Chokecherry is toxic to horses, moose, cattle, and goats, especially after the leaves have wilted (like they do after a frost) because wilting releases cyanide and makes the plant sweet. 

Chokecherry bark was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia from 1820 to 1970. It is still listed as a pharmaceutical aid, as a flavoring agent for liquid medicine.