Growing up in Northern California’s Mediterranean climate, there are lots of wild, non-native fruits that have naturalized
. In order of commonality:
Himalayan blackberry
Fig
Olive
Mulberry
Callery Pear
Cherry plum
Quince
Pecan
Pyrus (euro) pear
Apples (very rare) - the ones I found were questionable if they were old homestead trees.
That non-native fruit/nuts grows in your region?
In northern NV, my current home, we don’t have much due to the dry hot/cold climate.
Russian olive is fruit producing and the most common, but would not be considered edible by many.
In farming communities, mulberry comes up as volunteers around irrigation ditches.
That’s about it for here that I have seen.
In Tennessee… we have…
wild blackberry
dewberry
raspberry in part of the state
deerberry
The occasional wild plum
wild grapes… very tart
muscadine
elderberry
Persimmons
Lots of oak varieties that produce acorns
Several types of hickory… red, pig, mocker, shag, shell, bitternut
Black walnut
Redbud blossoms
Yellow and pink wood sorrel
Broadleaf and english plantain
Polk
Dandelion greens and flowers
Stinging nettle
Morel mushrooms, chanterelle, turkey tail, etc…
Mulberry
Black cherry
and I am sure many more I forgot to list.
Some of my favorite wild edibles are… deer, turkey, dove, quail, squirrel, rabbits, groundhog, bullfrogs, bass… large and smallmouth, blackperch, catfish, crappie, shellcrackers, brem, rattlesnake, softshell turtle.
TNHunter
There are tons of roadside wild apples in south-central BC. In my town specifically, cherries have also gone wild and can be found all over town, covering a spectrum of size and flavor from sweet red cherries to pie cherries to chokecherries and everything in between.
I’m surprised I can’t think of more. We have so many great wild fruits, especially berries… maybe those are just better at dominating our ecosystem.
The only non-native naturalized edible fruits I can think of in Tennessee are wineberries, white mulberries, callery pears and trifoliate orange. The last two very marginally edible. There are probably autumn olive somewhere, but I have never seen one here.
The correct term is feral.
I was in a local Tractor Supply store recently looking at a pamphlet with a title of something like “the wild vines of Tennessee”. I was surprised with how many were listed as poisonous.
I’m far from being knowledgeable about vines that look like muscadines. Mine are probably what I call “possum” grapes. May or not be edible.
lots and lots of wild apples here. seems every year i find a outstanding one without barely looking. and thats within 30 mi. area mostly. the apple belt is mostly in s. maine but most of those are planted cultivars. we get mostly wild seedlings growing up here. its suprising to find so much variability due to so few apples that would even survive up here in the past. my lastest find i call limestone apple. its a sept. ripening apple i found near the main road near a farmers mailbox in said town. its light yellow/ white apple with red streaks of medium size has a great balance of sweet and tart. very firm for a sept apple. taste is similar to zestar but still different enough to want to grow it. i grafted it on my black oxford. its firmness makes me think its a keeper. we’ll see. found another near a running track at a school last month at another nearby town . ill have to go back and get some scions of that one as well. that one has slight citrus under tones and is a long instead of squat yellow apple. if never seen that shape on apples around here.
We’ve got 'em in East TN. The TVA planted lots way back when.
wine berries, autumn olive, white mulberry, though I dont think theyre naturalized technicality. just invasive. golden oysters?
calgary pear?
I think most else are native as far as FRUITS. but plenty of invasive plants generally
Guava, strawberry guava, alpine strawberries, blackberries , 3 kind raspberries, passion fruit, vegetable fern, mango, ice cream beans, I can’t remember any other ones but there are.
Hawaii has so many wild/feral fruit it’s a blast to go forage there. I’m surprised raspberries grow. I wouldn’t think there would be sufficient chill hours.
it’s been years since I’ve visited a Hawaiin island, but last time I was there I discovered a jackfruit growing in a roadside ditch out in the country. That was cool.
Raspberries grow all over the place above 1500 feet. I have seen feral apples growing at 6200 feet. It gets cold at high altitude for sure!
Around here, the most common naturalized fruits are wild blackberries and raspberries. I also come across wild apples, pears, and the occasional mulberry tree. Some of them are probably leftovers from old homesteads rather than truly wild, but they still produce fruit and are fun to discover.
Only feral, nonnative plants with techically edible fruit here in Finland are 1) Malus domestica (common apple) that grows as a feral though rare species in most of Finland with the exception of northernmost parts of Finland, and only in southernmost sixth of Finland 2) Amelanchier spicata and 3) Prunus pensylvanica (that bears technically edible fruit that does not make one sick even if eaten in large amounts though I have understood that taste also helps to guarantee it is not eaten in large amounts). The conditions tend to be too harsh for species like pears, plums, cherries, or blackberries to become feral. Serviceberry might have some potential based on its hardiness, when it becomes more common in gardens.
By far the most common feral fruiting plants are various currants that are also native species so it is a bit tricky to sometimes make a distinction whether the birds that defecated the seeds ate the currants in a garden or in nature. We have five currants planted and I think there are altogether another five feral or wild ones in addition to those.
[Native, wild fruiting plants are much more common here, plants such as wild strawberries (that one can find almost everywhere although in small amounts), wild raspberries (very common), billberries (in every forest), bog billberries (very common), crowberries (very common), lingonberries (in every forest), cloudberries (a bit rarer here but you can always find some), arctic brambles (Rubus arcticus, my favourite, but unfortunately nowadays rare), stone brambles (Rubus saxatilis, less common, but still fairly common), cranberries (Vaccinium oxycoccos and Vaccinium microcarpum, also less common), bird-cherry (Prunus padus, very common), and sea-buckthorn (Hippophaë rhamnoides) only along the coast, then only in Lapland Arctous alpina, and a couple with technically but not really edible berries like juniper and rowan (Sorbus aucuparia).]
I think wineberries and maybe some other species of brambles and white mulberries are the main ones. Callery pears too, but those are barely edible. There’s probably others too that I haven’t noticed, it’s also sometimes hard to tell if trees were deliberately planted or not.
I guess bamboo probably counts too