Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Red Twinberry

On a trip to my cabin, I found more than a few red twinberry bushes displaying fruit.  Red twinberry, also known as Utah honeysuckle, is one of the first shrubs to put forth flags of green in the spring.  They are very hardy.  I consistently find them growing in my favored huckleberry patches.  The berries are pure red and grow as conjoined twins.  This makes them easy to identify. 

Red twinberries are edible.  They also have three remarkable things going for them.  First, they are nearly tasteless.  Secondly, they are filled with water.  Finally, red twinberries produce small, inconspicuous seeds.

After chewing on pine needles or nearly choking on overly-flavorful gooseberries (this is for you, Roland Vickers), munching on a somewhat tasteless berry has its advantages.  Personally, I think the twinberry has just the hint of a hint of watermelon flavor.  I like them.

I particularly enjoy the water content of these berries.  As I am picking huckleberries, I often swipe a few twinberries from nearby plants and munch on them.



Mitchell Hegman

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