Aronia berries.

They're quite tasty, once they're made into juice.

The botanists don't quite have a grasp on the aronias. If I've understood things correctly, some plants were imported from North America into the then Soviet Union, where they were bred into larger-berried and tastier-berried cultivars.

They're now either Aronia melanocarpa or Aronia mitschurinii, depending on which botanist you ask.

The confusion is illustrated by the fact that the cultivar 'Viking' is called the first in the botanical garden of Turku, where it's called the second in the botanical garden of Helsinki. These gardens are only about 170 km apart... I'd understand this dichotomy if they were in different countries, but this? Botanists!

Uses for the berries: I pick them when they're fully black but preferably before the first frost hits. I don't pick them now, as they're all over the hill - watery and bland in taste, and some of them have started to ferment.

They do taste better after a frost, so I clean them and throw them into the freezer for a few days. Then it's half aronia berries, half apples, and into the steam juicer, with some (not much) sugar. The juice is very tasty, not too sweet, and very good for thirst.

You can use other rowanberry recipes for aronia berries, as well, complete with the "add a tablespoon of good booze to half a liter of jam, jelly, etc." which rowanberries generally require.

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Related entry: Rowanberries