Thank you, Floral. They are trying to teach him not to eat random berries or whatever of course, but you never know what an 18 months old boy will do from one moment to the next. I will ask for better pictures, but that will not be before tonight. Geographical location is Ontario, Canada, not too far from Toronto. Zone 6. I think it may be Prunus virginiana, the chokecherry. They have pendant elongated clusters of flowers, which checks out. The fruits are edible, though extremely tart, the stones are poisonous.

stay at home dad.. back in the day ...

when i loosed the babes out the back door .. i gave them a snack baggie with goldfish.. and told them they could have more.. when they brought back the bag .. and taught them that they never eat anything except what i provided ... go figure.. i never lost a baggie ...

ken

and i told them to leave the goldfish in the pond alone.. lol ... but that was outside the fenced yard ...

Pits of all Prunus fruit are poisonous, cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, not only chokecherries.

And it's unlikely that ingestion of a single pit will result in even a bellyache. Don't worry...kids lived before people knew anything was poisonous :)

Ken, I will tell them about the baggies of goldfish. I have an idea this might work for him, but goldfish would become his main food group ;-).

Very true about the pits of all Prunus fruits. And I am sure I have survived the ingestion of several cherry pits. Thank you, everybody. Gardenweb is the best!

Pretty sure it will be self limiting considering how astringent chokecherries are.

The pit itself would just go straight through. The kid would have to have unbelievable teeth to get to the kernel which is the bit with the nasties.