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Women spread chokecherry-apple mixture on parchment paper to make chokecherry-apple fruit leather.
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of their abundance and close proximity to acorns, chokecherries are an ideal source of food for bears, who may eat 20 to 30 pounds of berries and acorns daily in the fall. According to Bryan Peterson of Bear Smart Durango, an organization that helps people and bears coexist, it takes 1,500 chokecherries to make a pound. That’s a whole lot of chokecherries. Additional partakers of the chokecherry fruit are wild turkeys, grouse, raccoons, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks, foxes, coyotes and deer. Many birds seek the seed in fall, some of them spitting out the fruit flesh for the reward of the fat- and protein-rich seed. Nabbing the high berries that the rest of us can’t reach are evening grosbeaks, robins, thrushes, jays and woodpeckers. MEDICINE It seems that every Native American tribe had its preferred medicinal use for the chokecherry. The Navajo made an infusion of fresh berries for stomachaches. The Blackfoot tribe drank berry juice for diarrhea and sore throats. Arikara women drank berry juice to stop postpartum hemorrhage. The Sioux placed poultices of dried roots in open wounds to stop bleeding. The chokecherry was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia National Formulary from 1820–1970. And, in their journals, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark recorded that, while camped on the upper Missouri River, Captain Lewis developed abdominal cramps and fever. He made a tea from chokecherry twigs and fully recovered by the next day. 18
AUGUST 2017
Debra Reuben, clinical herbalist and proprietor for 26 years at Durango’s Dancing Willow Herbs, relies on chokecherry for respiratory care. Reuben uses the inner bark as a cough suppressant, noting that not only does chokecherry help to loosen mucus so that it’s easier to expectorate, but it also calms coughs by soothing spasms of the smooth muscles involved in coughing. Furthermore, because chokecherry supports the nervous system, while quieting coughs it can also address anxiety caused by uncontrollable coughing. Reuben makes chokecherry tinctures (plant constituents extracted in grain alcohol) for adults, and for children, syrups. Reuben points out that there is no need to cut a central tree trunk for medicine; small diameter branches or newly downed branches are useful. And even twigs contain the same bark medicine. And finally, because in spring the bark contains high levels of cyanide, which as summer progresses migrates into the pit, the optimal time to harvest chokecherry limbs is fall after the cherries become ripe. TOXICITY Seeds and wilted leaves contain hydrocyanic acid. When the seeds are ground or pulverized an enzyme is released that breaks down the hydrocyanic acid making it toxic. The hydrocyanic acid is supposedly poisonous, although it’s indisputable that Native American tribes ate many seeds, as they would grind the berry whole to mix with meat and dry in “sun cakes” or pemmican. Wilted leaves have killed livestock, though deer, elk, bighorn sheep, coloradocountrylife.coop