Black chokeberry

Common name: Black chokeberry, aronia

Indigenous name: Niki'minun, also Sakwako'minun (Potawatomi)

Botanical name: Aronia melanocarpa

Botanical family: Rosaceae (Rose family)

Year the Patterson Arboretum specimen was planted: 1994

Native habitat: Eastern Canada to north central and eastern U.S.A.

Conservation status: Least concern

Plant Hardiness Zone: Zone 3a

Black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) is a perennial, deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub that grows naturally in a wide range of habitat, from bogs and moist woodlands to drier, upland or grassland areas.

While not native to Saskatchewan, black chokeberry is a useful landscape plant with three season interest: beautiful flowers in early spring, glossy green foliage in summer, plump black berries in late summer and leaves that turn colour ranging from orange/red to red in fall.

Black chokeberry does best in full sun but can tolerate part shade. It is well adapted to wet conditions making it suitable for growing in low-lying areas or in a rain garden. It is reported to also tolerate drought and would work in a xeriscape garden once it is established. It can grow in a wide range of soils but does best in slightly acidic soil.

It naturalizes and spreads, making it useful in natural settings. This habit is also useful for hedging. Some of the new shoots are the result of layering which is when a low branch contacts the soil and sets roots.

The native black chokeberry is an oval shaped shrub that grows up to 2 metres tall and 1 metre wide. Breeding work has introduced selections and hybrids with a smaller, more compact growth habit.

Black chokeberry leaves are 5 – 7 cm long, oval in shape, but narrower at the base than the tip. The tip of the leaf is pointed, and the outer edges are finely toothed.

The leaves emerge a light green colour and gradually deepen to dark, glossy green by early summer. The top of the leaf is darker than the underside. The leaves turn an orange/red to red colour in fall.

Note that the leaves of our black chokeberry are dull and slightly yellow. They likely suffered from stress and sunscald during the drought and extreme heat of the summer of 2021 when this photo was taken. See the “Leaves” section to see what leaves look like in a normal growing season.

Black chokeberries produce clusters (umbels) of 5-petalled white flowers with numerous long, delicate, pink stamens. The flowers appear in early spring. The main pollinators are solitary bees and hoverflies.

Black chokeberry fruits are not berries – they are called pomes like their apple relatives. The fruits are about the size of a blueberry but are a rich, dark purple to almost black colour. They grow in clusters of up to 30 fruits. Each fruit contains 1 – 5 small seeds. They mature in late summer. The fruits usually drop from the shrub after they mature, but sometimes fruits persist and may even shrivel on the plant. The fruit should be fully ripe before harvesting and tastes best after a frost or two.

The fruit is edible, but has a dry, astringent taste. It’s similar in astringency to the more familiar native chokecherry. Black chokeberry is widely grown in eastern Europe and Germany where it was introduced in the early 1900’s. They are grown overseas for the berries which are highly nutritious and have many health benefits.

Woody stems have a thin reddish/brown bark with light tan lenticels. Older stems tend to be grey/brown. Lenticels are lens-shaped porous, thickened tissue on the bark of some plants. Lenticels function like pores to allow the intake of oxygen and the release of carbon dioxide and water vapour.

This shrub produces rhizomes and underground runner which can spread or sucker and send up new shoots. Fortunately, the suckering habit is not too aggressive and can easily be controlled by clipping off the new shoots at soil level in the spring.  Left on its own, black chokeberry will slowly naturalize and fill in.

The black chokeberry fruit was steeped to make a tea to cure a cold by the Potawatomi. The Abnaki were known to use the fruit as a food.

Black chokeberries were sometimes used in a traditional food called pemmican, an energy-rich food made of dried, powdered meat mixed with tallow or fat. Dried black chokeberries (or other berries) were pounded into a powder and added to the mixture.

Black chokeberries have been grown in eastern Europe, Germany, Sweden, and Russia for some years as a food and a health product, and more recently is being grown commercially in Canada, the United States and Japan.

Black chokeberries (sometimes called aronia berries) are low in calories and highly nutritious. They are high in Vitamins C and A, fibre, and manganese. The level of antioxidants in black chokeberry is significantly higher than other small fruits including blueberries, blackberries, black currants, and lingonberries. Current research on chokeberries suggests health benefits such as inhibiting certain cancer cells, reducing of cardiovascular risk factors, and potentially preventing and controlling Type-2 diabetes.

This flavourful but astringent fruit can be used to make juice, jelly, jam, wine and is excellent in pies, crisps, muffins, or other baked goods. Interested in cooking with black chokeberries? Recipes are available from the American Aronia Berry Association here: https://americanaronia.org/recipes/

Black chokeberry is used in a range of other products such as a food dye, lip balms, health foods as well as an animal feed for birds and dogs.

Plant breeding of black chokeberry has been underway for several years for landscape use and for larger berries for the small fruit industry.

Dr. Mark Brand of the University of Connecticut is a prolific breeder of black chokeberry for landscape use. ‘Ground Hug’ is the shortest at a mere 30 tall which can be used as a groundcover. Two others are ‘Low Scape Hedger’ and ‘Low Scape Mound’. Both are very compact and make excellent short hedges.

‘Autumn Magic’ was introduced by the University of British Columbia in 1996. It is more compact than the species and turns a brilliant red/purple fall color.

‘McKenzie’ is a selection collected in Former Soviet Union and introduced by NRCS Plant Materials Center, Bismarck ND, 2008.

‘Morton’ (Iroquois Beauty™) was introduced by the Chicagoland Grows® Program. A shorter selection, it stays under a metre in height.

‘Nero’ is also under a metre in height and was developed in Poland.

‘Viking’ is a vigorous shrub with large fruit that grows to 1.8 metres tall, which was developed in Finland in 1980.

Botanical names sound foreign, but they can tell us a lot about the plant. The species name for black chokeberry, “melanocarpa” means “black-fruited”, derived from ‘melano’ which means black and “carpa” meaning fruit.

The pollen from spring blooming chokeberry flower is a food source for solitary bees. Black chokeberry leaves provide browse for deer and rabbits. The late season fruits are favoured by birds such as cedar waxwings, eastern meadowlark, grey catbird, brown thrasher, bobwhite quail, black-capped chickadee, ruffed grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, and prairie chickens.

Black chokeberry has been described as a “pioneer” species in native ecosystems, which means that it is one of the first plants to grow after a fire or after land is cleared. This plant reproduces by seeds which are sometimes transported by birds which eat the fruit and drop the seeds when they defecate.

Aronia melanocarpa (Michx.) Elliott | Plants of the world online | Kew Science. (n.d.). Plants of the World Online. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:1109609-2

Aronia melanocarpa—Plant finder. (n.d.). Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=286429

Engels, G., & Brinckmann, J. (2014). Black chokeberry—American Botanical Council. 101. https://www.herbalgram.org/resources/herbalgram/issues/101/table-of-contents/hg101-herbpro-chokeberry/

Knudsen, M. (2009). Plant Guide for black chokeberry (Photinia melanocarpa (Michx.) K.R. Robertson & Phipps). USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bismark Plant Materials Center, Bismark, ND. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/ndpmcpg8351.pdf

Kulling, S. E., & Rawel, H. M. (2008). Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa)– A review on the characteristic components and potential health effects. Planta Medica, 74(13), 1625–1634. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0028-1088306

Plant description and habitat of aronia (Black chokeberry). (n.d.). University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from https://extension.umaine.edu/agriculture/aronia/plant-description-and-habitat/

Smith, Huron. H. (1933). Ethnobotany of the Forest Potawatomi Indians. Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, 7(1).