Hi everyone. I need help in IDing a shrub with berries and need to know if any of the berries in the following pictures are safe to eat. There are several berry plants growing around our apartment here in southern West Virginia. Pictures 1 and 2 show a shrub with slightly pale colored leaves that have berries which are starting to ripen now. The 3rd picture is of an Indian Mock Strawberry (which I just discovered the ID a while ago by searching the forums before posting). The 4th picture shows, what I believe to be, unripened wild grapes.
4 looks like Fox Grapes (aka wild grapes) - they should be ready around the end of August. 1 and 2 remind me of Barberries, but don't quote me on that.
I've been Googling all evening in hopes to find out what the bush is called in photos 1 and 2 but still haven't found what I've been looking for. I even browsed WV DNR website with no luck in picking it out from the many species they had listed there. Could it be possible this is a non-native species? It's growing wild all over the place. In the spring they were so abundant in our county you could smell the wonderfully sweet odor of the white flowers in bloom. My husband didn't care for it though saying the smell was stinky it was so fragrant, lol.
Daniel you nailed it!! I searched google images after reading your reply and found a perfect shot of the berries that helped me confirm it. Thank you for the link. I'll be reading up on this bush and the other plants to get more familiar with them. Thank you so much for the help everyone!
