A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe.
Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes the fruits plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds.
Prunus cerasus is a species of Prunus in the subgenus Cerasus (cherries), native to much of Europe, North Africa and West Asia. It is closely related to the sweet cherry, but has a fruit that is more acidic. Its sour pulp is edible.
A cherry blossom, also known as a Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of trees in the genus Prunus or the Prunus subgenus Cerasus. Wild species of the cherry tree are widely distributed, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere. They are common in East Asia, especially in Japan. They generally refer to ornamental cherry trees, not cherry trees grown for their fruit. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Prunus serrulata or Japanese cherry is a species of cherry tree that grows naturally in Japan, China, and Korea, and it also refers to a cultivar produced from Prunus speciosa, a cherry tree endemic in Japan. Historically, the Japanese have developed many cultivars by selective breeding of cherry trees, which are produced by the complicated crossing of several wild species, and they are used for ornamental purposes all over the world. Of these, the cultivars produced by complex interspecific hybrids based on the Oshima cherry are also known as the Cerasus Sato-zakura Group.
Prunus × yedoensis is a hybrid cherry tree between Prunus speciosa as father plant and Prunus pendula f. ascendens as mother. It is a hybrid born in Japan and one of its cultivars, Prunus × yedoensis 'Somei-yoshino' or Yoshino cherry, is one of the most popular and widely planted cherry cultivars in temperate regions around the world today. 'Somei-yoshino' is a clone from a single tree, and has been propagated by grafting all over the world. 'Somei-yoshino' inherits Edo higan's quality of blooming before the leaves unfold and it growing into a large-sized tree. It also inherits the characteristics of the Oshima cherry, which grows rapidly and has white flowers. These characteristics are favored and have become one of the most popular cultivars of cherry trees.
Prunus speciosa, the Oshima cherry, Japanese オオシマザクラ, is native to Izu Ōshima island and the Izu Peninsula on Honshū near Tokyo, Japan.
Prunus itosakura, Prunus subhirtella or Edo higan, is the scientific name for one of the wild species of cherry trees native to Japan, and is also the name given to the cultivars derived from this species. Itosakura means thread cherry, and appeared in historical documents from the Heian period in Japan. The scientific name for the hybrid between this species and Prunus incisa is Prunus × subhirtella. Historically, the Japanese have produced many cultivars from this wild species, and they are also called weeping cherry, autumn cherry, or winter-flowering cherry, because of the characteristics of each cultivar.
Prunus fruticosa, the European dwarf cherry, dwarf cherry, Mongolian cherry or steppe cherry is a deciduous, xerophytic, winter-hardy, cherry-bearing shrub. It is also called ground cherry and European ground cherry, but is not to be confused with plants in the distinct "Groundcherry" genus of Physalis.
Prunus campanulata is a species of cherry native to Japan, Taiwan, southern and eastern China, and Vietnam. It is a large shrub or small tree, growing 3–8 m (10–26 ft) tall. It is widely grown as an ornamental tree, and a symbol of Nago in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. It is variously known in English as the Taiwan cherry, Formosan cherry, or bellflower cherry. It was described in 1883 by Carl Johann Maximowicz.
Prunus tomentosa is a species of Prunus native to northern and western China, Korea, Mongolia, and possibly northern India. Common names for Prunus tomentosa include Nanjing cherry, Korean cherry, Manchu cherry, downy cherry, Shanghai cherry, Ando cherry, mountain cherry, Chinese bush cherry, and Chinese dwarf cherry.
Prunus avium, commonly called wild cherry, sweet cherry, gean, or bird cherry is a species of cherry, a flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is native to Europe, Anatolia, Maghreb, and Western Asia, from the British Isles south to Morocco and Tunisia, north to the Trondheimsfjord region in Norway and east to the Caucasus and northern Iran, with a small isolated population in the western Himalaya. The species is widely cultivated in other regions and has become naturalized in North America and Australia.
Wild cherry is a common name for species of cherries growing outside of cultivation, especially:
Prunus canescens, the gray-leaf cherry, is a species of cherry native to China, found in Hubei and Sichuan provinces. A shrubby tree, it grows to about 3 m. It is a parent of a number of hybrid rootstocks for sweet cherries, and occasionally grown as an ornamental for its attractive shiny brown bark.
Prunus tianshanica, the Tianshan cherry, is a species of cherry native to the Tianshan Mountains of Central Asia, preferring to grow at 800-1000 m.
Prunus subg. Cerasus is a subgenus of Prunus. Species of the subgenus have a single winter bud per axil. The flowers are usually in small corymbs or umbels of several together, but some species have short racemes. The fruit is a drupe and has no obvious groove along the side. The subgenus is native to the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with two species in North America, four in Europe, two in North Africa, and the remainder in Asia.
Prunus × eminens or Prunus eminens is a species of small cherry tree native to central Europe. It is a naturally occurring hybrid of sour cherry, Prunus cerasus, and dwarf cherry, Prunus fruticosa, occasionally found where their ranges overlap. Like its parents, it is a tetraploid with 32 chromosomes. It is forming a hybrid swarm with, and threatening to extirpate, P. fruticosa in much of its western range through genetic pollution.
Prunus sect. Microcerasus is a section of Prunus. It used to be included in Prunus subg. Cerasus, but phylogenetic research indicates it belongs to Prunus subg. Prunus. It differs from Prunus subg. Cerasus by having three winter buds per axil.
