chokecherry

• choke cherry

From choke +‎ cherry, so called from the extreme astringency of the fresh fruit.

chokecherry (plural chokecherries)

1. Any of several American wild cherry trees, especially Prunus virginiana.
   • 1981, Bradford Angier, Field Guide to Medicinal Wild Plants:

     The youngster-loved chokecherry grows both as a bushy shrub and as a tree seldom higher than 22 feet, its branches bending with clusters of darkening red or blackish purple berrylike drupes . . .

2. The fruit of this plant.
   • 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 72:

     There were handfuls of chokecherries for dessert and a lemonade made from sumac.

• Virginia bird cherry
• bitter-berry
• bird cherry
• black cherry