Wild raisin

Photo: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org — CC BY 3.0 us · source

Survives zone 3 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

The common name is literal: as the fruit dries on the shrub in autumn it shrivels and sweetens like a raisin, with a date-like flavor once fully ripe. Now treated by many taxonomists as Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides, a variety of the wider-ranging possumhaw viburnum rather than a fully distinct species.

Hardiness

Zone 3–8

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Sept–Oct

Mature size

1.5–3.5 m tall by 1.5–3 m wide

Light

Full sun to part shade

Soil pH

5.0–7.0 (acidic to neutral), tolerates wet soil

Environment

Temperate, wetland margins

Native range

Eastern North America, from Newfoundland to Georgia and west to Manitoba — swamps, bogs, wet woods and streambanks.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

3–4 yrs

Growth speed

Moderate

Spacing

250 cm (98 in) apart — about 6.3 m² (67 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Elliptic to obovate, 5–10 cm, finely toothed, leathery

Root system

Shallow and fibrous, suckering from the base into a multi-stemmed clump, with low branches layering where they rest on the ground. Nothing deep, so it wants mulch and resents drought, but a lifted rooted sucker is a free plant.

Fruit description

Blue-black drupes in flat clusters, ~9 mm, shriveling raisin-like as they ripen

Propagation

Softwood cuttings in early summer, seed (double dormancy, two years to germinate), or layering.

Pollination

Insect-pollinated and self-fertile.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.