Wild Red Cherry
The wild red cherry is sour but edible; it is best used as preserves. The tree is usually small yet sometimes reaches the height of thirty feet. It is oftenest found in the woods of the north, but also grows among the mountains as far south as Tennessee. The bark is a reddish-brown and has rusty dots over it. The leaves are oblong, pointed at the tips and rather blunt at the base. They are bright green and glossy. The white flower is much like the cultivated cherry blossom but smaller; it grows in clusters. The cherries are light red and about the size of a pea.
Fruits found principally in the north and the middle west.
Sand-Cherry
Growing in the sand along our eastern coast as far south as New Jersey and sometimes on the shores of the Great Lakes, the sand-cherry is found. It is a low, trailing bush, but in some cases sends up erect branches as high as four feet. The fruit is dark red—black when quite ripe—and about half an inch long. It grows in small clusters or solitary, and is said to be sweet and edible. The leaves, dark green on the upper side, are lighter underneath; they are rather narrow, broadest toward the end and tapering at the base. The edge is toothed almost to the base. The flowers are white and thinly clustered.
Persimmon
In the Southern, Western, and Middle States, some say as far north as New York, grows the persimmon. Deliciously sweet and spicy when frost has ripened it, very astringent until ripe. It is plentiful in Kentucky and one of my earliest memories is of going to market with my mother in the fall to buy persimmons. There I learned to avoid the fair, perfect fruit, though to all appearances it was quite ripe, and to choose that which looked bruised and broken.