Chokeberry, a member of the Rose family, is a lovely and useful small tree or suckering shrub for wet or dry places in sun or light shade. In late spring, it has fragrant, half-inch white flowers resembling wild roses. Summer foliage is a lustrous dark green and is followed by spectacular fall color ranging from fluorescent crimson to deep reddish-purple. The colorful leaves hold on well into the winter. But Chokeberry is also endowed with bright red berries that may be so plentiful as to weight down the branches. These, too, are long-lasting and persist through the winter as they are apparently distasteful to birds. Chokeberry is a very easy to grow shrub/tree with three plus seasons of interest. It looks especially outstanding when massed.

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I may have seen a few specimens of the regular mother species of this Red Chokeberry at woodland edges at the Jamestown historical area in Virginia, but it was March and I was not sure. A few were planted in a marsh in front of the Colonial Plantation at Ridley State Park in southeast PA that may be the straight species. I saw some young wild straight species plants coming up in Volo Bog in northeast Illinois in August 2014. Otherwise, I have only seen the one really common cultivar of "Brilliantissima" and I planted 4 of such in my backyard in southeast PA. The cultivar has slightly larger berries that are a little more abundantly produced. Otherwise, the species is native in the USA from southern New England to northern Florida to east Texas to southern Arkansas into Tennessee to some spots in Ohio, being found in various wet areas of bogs, swamps, and banks of watercourses, usually in sandy or peatmossy acid soils. However, it will grow fine in many regular landscapes if the soil is not really alkaline. This shrub does send out some ground suckers, especially in wet soils; however, it is easy to prune the suckers or the plant. Easy to propagate from the suckers. Some native plant nurseries sell the straight mother species. Whether the species or a cultivar of it, Red Chokeberry is a high quality, clean, beautiful shrub with pretty foliage, bark, buds, flowers, and fruit and it should be used more in landscapes or in native plant restorations. (Red Chokeberry bears the red fruit that is usually slightly smaller than that of its sister the Black Chokeberry and later to ripen, in September rather than August, and the red fruit is very bitter to eat, so it got the name of "choke" berry. I have seen some Robins eating some fruit in late winter. The red fruit usually is red from late September into January, but during mild winters I have seen it still looking good into early April, before browning and shrivelling.) The Red species also has leaves that are more pointed and narrower than the Black species and the leaves of the former also display a nice whitish bloom on the underneath side, and usually emerge a little later in spring than the black species.

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