Golly! Will no ornamental plant be safe from the hunger of the adventurous?!? Next week I expect to see you munching on some pyracantha... uh oh, shouldn't have said that! :D
In all fairness, I do hope someone somewhere undertakes the task of making more tasty edible decorative cultivars. Another idea would be to have more naturally edible species more readily accepted as decorative - that would require way less selection work and more demonstration gardens :) Get to redoing that front yard of yours!
We grew up nibbling on Cotoneaster berries. The skins and pulp (slightly sweet) are thin before one reaches the seeds, a lot like rose hips. They never made us sick, and they never smelled like bitter almonds or otherwise like cyanogenic glucosides were being released. Not the same taste or smell vs. apple seeds, cherry leaves, wild cherry leaves, apricot pits broken, etc. We were warned about plenty of berries in the mountains and on the prairie, but not these.
We never ate the hard seeds. I would not doubt they (versus the pulp) contain cyanogenic glucosides.
I checked and this species is C. lucidus. It's one of the most cold hardy. The berries don't turn bright red. The leaves do; beautiful. Shiny green in late April to early October. Then flame red-orange. The green berries become a dull red in August and then a bluish purple in September and October. I have a feeling these are actually edible, unless they have a lot of sorbic acid. A hunch says they're also antiviral and not just medicinal in ways related hawthorn berries are.
More critters than just birds seem to consume them here. There aren't many around dried up in the late winter / early spring. Raccoons, deer, black bears? Nothing much eats the leaves, however, except aphids in late May and June. Massive amounts of ladybug (ladybird) larvae end up on the hedges then, eating away at the little green sapsuckers. And then each hedge "produces" a large number of adult ladybugs.
Cotoneaster is such a large genus and has such a large range in Asia that I'm tempted to believe our forebears made mistakes and some species are actually in another genus. There's a lot of diversity to leaf arrangement and fruit arrangement. C. lucidus berries are not in big clusters. Many berries are single in no cluster at all.
Sure wish there was an email address instead of attempting to post this. I'll hit "post" now and it will likely take me down a rabbit hole of a dozen steps to join this and log into that.
That's a good point about dosage. Amounts consumed. However, I have a feeling C. lucidus berries are not poisonous. I tasted one last evening. Not fully ripe. Definitely a malic acid flavor. I'm a chemist by trade, btw. I don't get any bitter or almond extract flavors or odors. The seeds and leaves are likely a whole other ball of toxic wax. I should crush a few seeds and see.
These have been hedge plants in the Northern U.S. and Canada for a century and a half. One would think that if the berries were little cyanide time bombs our grandparents would have done a lot of fearmongering with claw-pointed fingers. But... nope. Twinberries, nightshades, and ghostberries (snowberries)... those were a different matter. --T.S.
I love underlooked edible ornamental plants. Maybe C. lucidus was used in pemmican by the First Nation peoples.
Identification of toxic/poisonous compounds through taste/smell or easy home tests in plants is not a taught thing in the food forest circles, you could teach us a lot!
There need to be more home tests. Also for testing to see if food is actually bad.
Some compounds can mask others, as you'd expect. And not everyone can smell or taste some compounds or precursors. But the process still works. It's still diagnostic and could/should be taught more. (I'm here to help down the road.) A bit like mushroom ID that involves taste and smell. If you're absolutely sure something is not a deadly Amanita, then tasting can help ID. Is it tasteless or is it peppery hot or slightly bitter? Those sorts of things. Not always to see if it's edible, but to ID for collection hobby or science. One obviously spits it all out and rinses out the ole mouth.
It's my understanding that all Cotoneaster (((I thought that was "cotton Easter" the first time seeing it as a boy LOL... it's not in the aster family at all, granted))) species were brought to N. America. They're native to Central and Northern Asia, with some splat overlap into E. Asia and S. Asia. So from Nepal to Baikal, and over into Korea and Manchuria one way... and into the Stans another way. Coincidentally, or not, the apple is also native to part of that big range. The capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata (now Almaty), even means 'father of the apple.' There are apple forests in the foothills nearby. It's one of the main and apex species. As apples don't grow true to seed --they have a ton of genetic diversity-- the apple fruits in this forest show an amazing diversity of size, shape, and color. Small and yellow, big and bluish purple, oblong or even pear or small banana shape and red. You name it. Some peach soft, some Asian pear crunchy. Sweet, sour, bitter, insipid. All o the above. Hawthorns might also be native to Central Asia. I'd have to check. They might be one of the Apple-Cotoneaster tribe (in the Rose family as you know) that's actually from Western Eurasia. Lemme check... consensus is that they evolved in eastern N. America and Europe. Yep.
Malic acid is the sour apple tartness. Bright. "Greenish." Sorbic acid is more astringent + tart. It's also less noticeable. Not as strong. Citric acid is very sour; a little goes a long way. It's closer to malic but stronger and also a little metallic. Lactic acid is tart but in a smoother "buttery" way. Acetic acid is vinegar = spoiled wine = oxidized ethanol, of course. Tart with a characteristic odor. That malic, sorbic, citric, and lactic don't have.
Crush several fresh apple seeds. Smell them closely. Taste some but spit out. That characteristic bitterness (and there are many kinds of bitterness) and that almondy/apricot-y odor are the cyanogenic glycosides and a little cyanide. CN. It's toxic because it irreversibly binds to hemoglobin. It binds more strongly than oxygen does. Too much cyanide strangles an animal in a chemical way. Simple mechanism. No oxygen going to tissues. Brain, heart, liver, then diaphragm = stop breathing = even less O2. Not being morbid. The simplicity is remarkable. Many other toxins out there shut and lock OR kick open calcium, potassium, sodium, or chloride channels on cells. Also very simple. But once those doors are always open or always closed... no bueno. The system stops. Fortunately, many alkaloid and/or saponin toxins are bitter. Many other toxins smell bad, like hydrogen sulfide. Billions of years of evolution behind avoidance.
We have one in our garden, with the broad leaves. It has been speaking to us! My daughter plays with it all the time and our dog has been eating it, too. I've been googling to check the toxicity, and found your substack! Thank you for coming up with all of this research. It really is a lovely tree. The bees and hornets make it hum at some parts of the year in the spring and summer. I am wondering if the vest way to have the berries would be a syrup or jam, or sauce, rather than a tea / oil? Maybe a sweet? Like a gummie or a boiled sweet? I have never dared try it! I just keep saying that they ought not to eat it, but after we pruned it and brought it in the house, I thought I had best check the properties. It is already in many "potions" the kids make, maybe we could make our own edible elixir.
The best way of processing it is the way that will make it the best to eat for your audience. In this case, because of the cyanogenic glycosides, boiling it to make jam or gummies or syrup wouldn't be a bad way to go. Let me know how that goes!
Golly! Will no ornamental plant be safe from the hunger of the adventurous?!? Next week I expect to see you munching on some pyracantha... uh oh, shouldn't have said that! :D
In all fairness, I do hope someone somewhere undertakes the task of making more tasty edible decorative cultivars. Another idea would be to have more naturally edible species more readily accepted as decorative - that would require way less selection work and more demonstration gardens :) Get to redoing that front yard of yours!
Fabulous article, thank you for inspiring me. I will try some berries this week! Would love to try some!
I'm glad you liked it! Is there a specific species of Cotoneaster you're going to try? Please be careful and only try a little bit, either way.
There is one on a local walk, I will take a photo and try to identify. And eat only a little, got it!
Hi "A. Potentilla,"
We grew up nibbling on Cotoneaster berries. The skins and pulp (slightly sweet) are thin before one reaches the seeds, a lot like rose hips. They never made us sick, and they never smelled like bitter almonds or otherwise like cyanogenic glucosides were being released. Not the same taste or smell vs. apple seeds, cherry leaves, wild cherry leaves, apricot pits broken, etc. We were warned about plenty of berries in the mountains and on the prairie, but not these.
We never ate the hard seeds. I would not doubt they (versus the pulp) contain cyanogenic glucosides.
I checked and this species is C. lucidus. It's one of the most cold hardy. The berries don't turn bright red. The leaves do; beautiful. Shiny green in late April to early October. Then flame red-orange. The green berries become a dull red in August and then a bluish purple in September and October. I have a feeling these are actually edible, unless they have a lot of sorbic acid. A hunch says they're also antiviral and not just medicinal in ways related hawthorn berries are.
More critters than just birds seem to consume them here. There aren't many around dried up in the late winter / early spring. Raccoons, deer, black bears? Nothing much eats the leaves, however, except aphids in late May and June. Massive amounts of ladybug (ladybird) larvae end up on the hedges then, eating away at the little green sapsuckers. And then each hedge "produces" a large number of adult ladybugs.
Cotoneaster is such a large genus and has such a large range in Asia that I'm tempted to believe our forebears made mistakes and some species are actually in another genus. There's a lot of diversity to leaf arrangement and fruit arrangement. C. lucidus berries are not in big clusters. Many berries are single in no cluster at all.
Sure wish there was an email address instead of attempting to post this. I'll hit "post" now and it will likely take me down a rabbit hole of a dozen steps to join this and log into that.
T.S.
I appreciate your thoughts on this and the time you took to sign up.
I think our forebears had a widely varied diet, so they could regularly have small quantities of stuff that would be toxic at high doses.
That's a good point about dosage. Amounts consumed. However, I have a feeling C. lucidus berries are not poisonous. I tasted one last evening. Not fully ripe. Definitely a malic acid flavor. I'm a chemist by trade, btw. I don't get any bitter or almond extract flavors or odors. The seeds and leaves are likely a whole other ball of toxic wax. I should crush a few seeds and see.
These have been hedge plants in the Northern U.S. and Canada for a century and a half. One would think that if the berries were little cyanide time bombs our grandparents would have done a lot of fearmongering with claw-pointed fingers. But... nope. Twinberries, nightshades, and ghostberries (snowberries)... those were a different matter. --T.S.
I love underlooked edible ornamental plants. Maybe C. lucidus was used in pemmican by the First Nation peoples.
Identification of toxic/poisonous compounds through taste/smell or easy home tests in plants is not a taught thing in the food forest circles, you could teach us a lot!
There need to be more home tests. Also for testing to see if food is actually bad.
Some compounds can mask others, as you'd expect. And not everyone can smell or taste some compounds or precursors. But the process still works. It's still diagnostic and could/should be taught more. (I'm here to help down the road.) A bit like mushroom ID that involves taste and smell. If you're absolutely sure something is not a deadly Amanita, then tasting can help ID. Is it tasteless or is it peppery hot or slightly bitter? Those sorts of things. Not always to see if it's edible, but to ID for collection hobby or science. One obviously spits it all out and rinses out the ole mouth.
It's my understanding that all Cotoneaster (((I thought that was "cotton Easter" the first time seeing it as a boy LOL... it's not in the aster family at all, granted))) species were brought to N. America. They're native to Central and Northern Asia, with some splat overlap into E. Asia and S. Asia. So from Nepal to Baikal, and over into Korea and Manchuria one way... and into the Stans another way. Coincidentally, or not, the apple is also native to part of that big range. The capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata (now Almaty), even means 'father of the apple.' There are apple forests in the foothills nearby. It's one of the main and apex species. As apples don't grow true to seed --they have a ton of genetic diversity-- the apple fruits in this forest show an amazing diversity of size, shape, and color. Small and yellow, big and bluish purple, oblong or even pear or small banana shape and red. You name it. Some peach soft, some Asian pear crunchy. Sweet, sour, bitter, insipid. All o the above. Hawthorns might also be native to Central Asia. I'd have to check. They might be one of the Apple-Cotoneaster tribe (in the Rose family as you know) that's actually from Western Eurasia. Lemme check... consensus is that they evolved in eastern N. America and Europe. Yep.
Malic acid is the sour apple tartness. Bright. "Greenish." Sorbic acid is more astringent + tart. It's also less noticeable. Not as strong. Citric acid is very sour; a little goes a long way. It's closer to malic but stronger and also a little metallic. Lactic acid is tart but in a smoother "buttery" way. Acetic acid is vinegar = spoiled wine = oxidized ethanol, of course. Tart with a characteristic odor. That malic, sorbic, citric, and lactic don't have.
Crush several fresh apple seeds. Smell them closely. Taste some but spit out. That characteristic bitterness (and there are many kinds of bitterness) and that almondy/apricot-y odor are the cyanogenic glycosides and a little cyanide. CN. It's toxic because it irreversibly binds to hemoglobin. It binds more strongly than oxygen does. Too much cyanide strangles an animal in a chemical way. Simple mechanism. No oxygen going to tissues. Brain, heart, liver, then diaphragm = stop breathing = even less O2. Not being morbid. The simplicity is remarkable. Many other toxins out there shut and lock OR kick open calcium, potassium, sodium, or chloride channels on cells. Also very simple. But once those doors are always open or always closed... no bueno. The system stops. Fortunately, many alkaloid and/or saponin toxins are bitter. Many other toxins smell bad, like hydrogen sulfide. Billions of years of evolution behind avoidance.
T.S.
We have one in our garden, with the broad leaves. It has been speaking to us! My daughter plays with it all the time and our dog has been eating it, too. I've been googling to check the toxicity, and found your substack! Thank you for coming up with all of this research. It really is a lovely tree. The bees and hornets make it hum at some parts of the year in the spring and summer. I am wondering if the vest way to have the berries would be a syrup or jam, or sauce, rather than a tea / oil? Maybe a sweet? Like a gummie or a boiled sweet? I have never dared try it! I just keep saying that they ought not to eat it, but after we pruned it and brought it in the house, I thought I had best check the properties. It is already in many "potions" the kids make, maybe we could make our own edible elixir.
The best way of processing it is the way that will make it the best to eat for your audience. In this case, because of the cyanogenic glycosides, boiling it to make jam or gummies or syrup wouldn't be a bad way to go. Let me know how that goes!
Hm, cyanogenic glYcosides. I should know better. Typing quickly.
Solanine in green potatoes are a glycoside too. A steroid (the non-sugars portion is related to cholesterol) glycoside and also a saponin.
T.S.