FRUITS IN JUNE

      Sour cherry, black mulberry and shad bush trees bear fruit in June in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, as elsewhere in the eastern United States.  One afternoon early in this present June, I drove around a corner in New Holland in Lancaster County and noticed two sour cherry trees loaded with lively, beautiful American robins ingesting the red fruits of those trees.  And there were seven or eight other, handsome  robins on the ground that were also consuming fallen cherries.  What a lovely picture those robins made. 

      Sour cherry, black mulberry and shad bush all have pretty blossoms in April, which are pollinated by honey bees and a variety of other kinds of early insects.  The trees' fruits grow in May and ripen early in June, to the delight of black bears, white-tailed deer, rodents, raccoons, American robins, starlings and other species of berry-eating birds, box turtles and several other types of creatures.  Few other berries and fruits are available to wildlife in June, locally.  

     Sour cherry trees are planted mostly for their fruit that is made into pies and tarts.  Berry-eating birds swallow the cherries whole, digest the sugary pulp, and pass the hard-shelled seeds, often miles away from the parent trees, in their droppings.  Those seeds not eaten by rodents, have a chance of sprouting during the warmth of the next year.   

     Mulberry trees are adaptable, and common here and there along country roads, railroad tracks, and streams, and in undisturbed hedgerows between fields.  Most mulberry trees spring up wild in those places, as results of bird droppings where birds landed on twigs and wires overhead. 

     Black mulberries are small, hard and white at first, but become red, then dark purple and juicy.  Each soft fruit is a cluster of small drupes that are berry-like.  During June, when mulberries are soft, dark and juicy, groups of purple grackles, American robins, European starlings, gray catbirds, northern cardinals, and individual opossums, black bears and other creatures ingest many mulberry fruits, splattering the ground with mulberry juice.        

     It's tough to eradicate mulberry sprouts.  A young mulberry tree sprouted against our house when I lived in Neffsville, Pennsylvania.  Every year, I cut the flexible twigs to kill it, but the next year it produced new twigs and leaves.  

     Shad bush are small, understory trees of woodlands.  They are called shad bush because they bloom when shad fish come up streams to spawn.  They are also called Juneberry because of the red and purple, small berries that ripen by June.  The lovely, sweet shad bush berries are consumed by the same critters that feed on mulberries and sour cherries.   

     Sour cherries, black mulberries and shad bush are trees that have lovely flowers in April and ripe fruit in June.  The fruits of those trees feed a host of birds and mammals, which add to the trees' beauties and intrigues.  Together, they provide a lot of food for wildlife, and beauty for us in the eastern United States.   

     

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