Red chokeberry

Mespilus arbutifolia Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 478. 1753; Aronia glabrescens Spach; A. pubens Spach; A. pumila M. Roemer; A. pyrifolia (Lamarck) Persoon; Crataegus pyrifolia Lamarck; Halmia tomentosa M. Roemer var. pyrifolia (Lamarck) M. Roemer; Photinia pyrifolia (Lamarck) K. R. Robertson & J. B. Phipps; Pyrus arbutifolia (Linnaeus) Linnaeus f.; Sorbus arbutifolia (Linnaeus) Heinhold

Stems appressed-pilose. Leaves pale green abaxially, dark green and dull adaxially, coloring in autumn; blade 3–7.5 × 2–3.5 cm, apex subacute to acuminate, abaxial surface pilose, adaxial glabrous or glabrescent, midrib abaxially densely gray-hairy, adaxially glandular-hairy. Flowers sweet-scented; hypanthium villous, especially proximally; sepal margins villous proximally; anthers yellow to purplish red. Pomes red, pilose, taste acid and bitter. 2n = 34, 68.

Flowering Feb–May; fruiting Sep–Nov. Swamps, wet thickets, peatland pocosins, bogs, fens, wet pine flatwoods, margins of freshwater wetlands, beaver ponds, mixed loblolly pine, Magnolia virginiana-Rhus vernix-swamps, black gum swamps; 0–2000 m; N.B., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Miss., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va.

The presence of Aronia arbutifolia in Maine is uncertain; it has been reported from there, but no specimens are known (A. Haines, pers. comm.).