Here’s a pic of the berries on a plant in my Maryland back yard, taken in October. It now looks like this in December. Any ID on what this plant is would be appreciated.
TIA
They look to me a lot like service berries, but I don’t know if they grow out east, and I am not a botanist.
A description of the plant would be helpful. Woody or not? How tall? What kind of leaves?
Wish I could remember. Was so focussed on the flowers/berries that I don’t remember the leaves. The plant gets pretty tall if I remember correctly, maybe 10 feet or so. Here are a couple pics (1) (2) from earlier this year in springtime.
But it’s non-woody?
Could it be some variety of green briar; Smilax?
I am confident that it is not a serviceberry. For one thing, you wouldn’t see intact berries like that on a serviceberry in Maryland in October; they’d long since have been eaten by birds (or humans) or shriveled up and fallen off.
The flowers (and berries) are five-parted, while Smilax flowers are six-parted.
Also, the flower is quite different.
Amelanchier grows all over North America, with many wild varieties… This one appears wild as not a nice flower or fruit… You can all them all service berry presumably.
One is called “sanguinises” after its blood red branches.
I see Amelanchier arborea x grandiflora grows that many flowers and hence pomes (not a true berry) in each bunch…
The flower stem structure could be from one of them …
I believe that is a species in the genus *Aralia, *which includes the Devil’s Walking Stick.
http://www.missouriplants.com/Whitealt/Aralia_spinosa_page.html
I think you got it, newme. After some Googling it looks like Aralia spinosa or Aralia elata. I’m partial to spinosa for the nick name “Devil’s Walking Stick.”
Thank you!