Its ominous name and reputation notwithstanding, chokecherry is top of the menu for wildlife across Canada in late summer. The typically multi-stemmed tall shrub or small tree, averaging two to three metres high, abounds along forest edges, further offering a dense sanctuary for birds and beasts year-round.
Fragrant spools of white, late-spring blossoms—attracting hordes of bees, butterflies, beetles, and flies—yield bounties of chokecherries that can turn very dark purple in August and September. As with other fruits that have pits, each pea-sized cherry has a stone that holds a single seed containing the building blocks of cyanide, activated within human stomachs. The pulp itself is edible but bitter and mouth-puckering, though it sweetens with age and frost. Drying and cooking neutralizes poison in the seeds, and, with the addition of sugar, the tiny cherries become tasty in homemade jam, pies, syrup, and wine.
What’s better: eating blueberries or picking them?
More than 70 kinds of songbirds, woodpeckers, and upland fowl devour chokecherries, many before the fruits are ripe. Mammals (black bears, foxes, and raccoons) partake as well. The animals spread the seeds through their droppings.
Later, the seeds are often retrieved and buried by hoarding rodents, such as deer mice and squirrels. Mice may remove hundreds of seeds from a single bear treasure trove, then distribute them in various food caches up to dozens of metres away. Those not eaten have a much stronger chance of germinating and surviving than seeds left in scat.
Ravaging bears, branch-browsing moose, deer, and an immense array of leaf-munching caterpillars and other insects can devastate the shrubby trees. But chokecherry shoots rapidly re-emerge from the base of old stumps or from its sprawling root system, redoubling the tree’s growth, often forming thickets.
This article was originally published in the August 2025 issue of Cottage Life.
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