Wild Cherry
Latin name
Prunus avium
Family
Rosaceae
Flowering season
March to May
English distribution
It is found throughout the country.
See the BSBI distribution map for Wild Cherry
Habitat
It grows in deciduous woodland and hedges, and is widely
planted.
Description
Wild Cherry is a native tree growing up to 30m.
The white flowers up to 25mm across with 5 petals
It has a capitate stigma and numerous stamens.
Leaves are pointed and coppery underneath.
Fruits are usually red, but can be yellow or black.
It spreads by seeds and suckers.
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.
Wild Cherry is the tree planted by my wife's grave in a
natural, hillside burial ground.
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Wild Cherry tree Ham Hill, Somerset
Cherry blossom
Many stamens, bilobed stigma
Leaves and bark