Prunus cerasifera

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Prunus cerasifera
Wildpflaume Althof-2.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Prunus
Subgenus: Prunus subg. Prunus
Section: Prunus sect. Prunus
Species:
P. cerasifera
Binomial name
Prunus cerasifera
Ehrh. 1784 not Popov 1929 nor Lecoq & Lamotte 1848
Synonyms [1]
List
  • Selected synonyms
    • Prunus alpestrisSchischk.
    • Prunus cerasifera subsp. myrobalana(L.) C.K.Schneid.
    • Prunus divaricataLedeb.
    • Prunus domestica subsp. cerasifera (Ehrh.) Arcang.
    • Prunus domestica var. myrobalanaL.
    • Prunus myrobalana(L.) Desf.
    • Prunus mirobalanusPoit. & Turpin
    • Prunus pissardiiCarrière
    • Prunus sogdianaVassilcz.

Prunus cerasifera is a species of plum known by the common names cherry plum and myrobalan plum. [2] It is native to Southeast Europe [3] [4] [5] and Western Asia, [2] [6] and is naturalised in the British Isles [3] and scattered locations in North America. [7] [8] [9] Also naturalized in parts of SE Australia where it is considered to be a mildly invasive weed of bushland near urban centers. P. cerasifera is believed to one of the parents of the Cultivated Plum, Prunus domestica perhaps crossing with the sloe, Prunus spinosa [10] , or perhaps the sole parent [11] . This would make it a parent of most of the commercial varieties of plum in the UK and mainland Europe - Victoria, greengages, bullace etc.

Contents

Description

Wild types are large shrubs or small trees reaching 8–12 m (25–40 feet) tall, sometimes spiny, with glabrous, ovate deciduous leaves 3–7 cm (1–3 in) long. [3] :196 It is one of the first European trees to flower in spring, [3] often starting in mid-February before the leaves have opened. The flowers are white or pale pink and about 2 cm (34 in) across, with five petals and many stamens. The fruit is an edible drupe, 2–3 cm in diameter, ripening to yellow or red from early July to mid-September. They are self-fertile but can also be pollinated by other Prunus varieties such as the Victoria plum. [12] The plant propagates by seed or by suckering, and is often used as the rootstock for other Prunus species and cultivars. [3]

Cultivation

The cherry plum is a popular ornamental tree for garden and landscaping use, grown for its very early flowering. Numerous cultivars have been developed, many of them selected for purple foliage, such as P cerasifera var pissardii(Carrière) L.H. Bailey (P. 'Atropurpurea'). [3] [13] The cultivar 'Nigra' with black foliage and pink flowers, has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. [14] Prunus × cistena (purple leaf sand cherry), a hybrid of Prunus cerasifera and Prunus pumila , the sand cherry, also won the Award of Garden Merit. [15] [16] [17] These purple-foliage forms (often called 'purple-leaf plum'), also have dark purple fruit, which make an attractive, intensely coloured jam. They can have white or pink flowers. The cultivar 'Thundercloud' has bright red foliage which darkens purple. [18] Others, such as 'Lindsayae', have green foliage. Some kinds of purple-leaf plums are used for bonsai [13] and other forms of living sculpture.

Cultivated cherry plums can have fruits, foliage, and flowers in any of several colours. Some varieties have sweet fruits that can be eaten fresh, while others are sour and better for making jam. Cherry plums are a key ingredient in Georgian cuisine where they are used to produce tkemali sauce, as well as a number of popular dishes, such as kharcho soup and chakapuli stew. It is a popular tree in Romania where its fruits are used for souring soups when immature, for eating raw when ripened, and for making moonshine when overripe because of their high sugar content.

See also

Notes

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherry</span> Fruit of some plants of the genus Prunus

    A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Plum</span> Edible fruit

    A plum is a fruit of some species in Prunus subg. Prunus. Dried plums are most often called prunes, though in the United States they may be just labeled as 'dried plums', especially during the 21st century.

    <i>Prunus</i> Genus of trees and shrubs

    Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes the fruits plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds.

    <i>Prunus laurocerasus</i> Species of plant

    Prunus laurocerasus, also known as cherry laurel, common laurel and sometimes English laurel in North America, is an evergreen species of cherry (Prunus), native to regions bordering the Black Sea in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe, from Albania and Bulgaria east through Turkey to the Caucasus Mountains and northern Iran.

    <i>Prunus spinosa</i> Species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae

    Prunus spinosa, called blackthorn or sloe, is a species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae. The species is native to Europe, western Asia, and regionally in northwest Africa. It is locally naturalized in New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Pacific Northwest and New England regions of the United States.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Damson</span> Edible fruit

    The damson or damson plum, also archaically called the "damascene", is an edible drupaceous fruit, a subspecies of the plum tree. Varieties of insititia are found across Europe, but the name damson is derived from and most commonly applied to forms that are native to Great Britain. Damsons are relatively small ovoid plum-like fruit with a distinctive, somewhat astringent taste, and are widely used for culinary purposes, particularly in fruit preserves and jams.

    <i>Prunus serotina</i> Species of tree

    Prunus serotina, commonly called black cherry, wild black cherry, rum cherry, or mountain black cherry, is a deciduous tree or shrub of the genus Prunus. Despite being called black cherry, it is not very closely related to the commonly cultivated cherries such as sweet cherry, sour cherry and Japanese flowering cherries which belong to Prunus subg. Cerasus. Instead, P. serotina belongs to Prunus subg. Padus, a subgenus also including Eurasian bird cherry and chokecherry. The species is widespread and common in North America and South America.

    <i>Prunus salicina</i> Species of tree

    Prunus salicina, commonly called the Japanese plum or Chinese plum, is a small deciduous tree native to China. It is now also grown in fruit orchards in Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Israel, the United States, and Australia.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Bullace</span> Variety of plum

    The bullace is a variety of plum. It bears edible fruit similar to those of the damson, and like the damson is considered to be a strain of the insititia subspecies of Prunus domestica. Although the term has regionally been applied to several different kinds of "wild plum" found in the United Kingdom, it is usually taken to refer to varieties with a spherical shape, as opposed to the oval damsons.

    <i>Prunus pumila</i> North American species of cherry in the rose family

    Prunus pumila, commonly called sand cherry, is a North American species of cherry in the rose family. It is widespread in eastern and central Canada from New Brunswick west to Saskatchewan and the northern United States from Maine to Montana, south as far as Colorado, Kansas, Indiana, and Virginia, with a few isolated populations in Tennessee and Utah. It grows in sandy locations such as shorelines and dunes.

    <i>Prunus tomentosa</i> Species of tree

    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.

    <i>Prunus domestica</i> Species of flowering plant

    Prunus domestica is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae. A deciduous tree, it includes many varieties of the fruit trees known as plums in English, though not all plums belong to this species. The greengages and damsons also belong to subspecies of P. domestica.

    <i>Stigmella plagicolella</i> Species of moth

    Stigmella plagicolella is a moth of the family Nepticulidae described by Henry Tibbats Stainton in 1854. It is found in all of Europe and the Near East.

    <i>Prunus avium</i> Species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae

    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 New Zealand and Australia.

    <i>Prunus angustifolia</i> Species of tree

    Prunus angustifolia, known commonly as Chickasaw plum, Cherokee plum, Florida sand plum, sandhill plum, or sand plum, is a North American species of plum-bearing tree. It was originally cultivated by Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. The species' name angustifolia refers to its narrow leaves. It became the official state fruit of Kansas in 2022.

    <i>Prunus <span style="font-style:normal;">×</span> dasycarpa</i> Species of plant

    Prunus × dasycarpa, called purple apricot and black apricot, is a species of tree. It is in the genus Prunus in the rose family, Rosaceae. The species was named by Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart in 1791. The buds are reddish-orange, and the flower blossoms are white. It is likely a hybrid of P. armeniaca × P. cerasifera. There is disagreement about whether this is a human-cultivated cross or a naturally occurring cross from Western Asia.

    <i>Prunus <span style="font-style:normal;">×</span> cistena</i> Species of flowering plant

    Prunus × cistena, the purple leaf sand cherry or dwarf red-leaf plum, is a hybrid species of Prunus, the result of a cross between Prunus cerasifera and Prunus pumila. A deciduous leggy bush or shrubby tree, it typically reaches a height of 1.5–2.5 meters (5–8 ft) and has a useful life of 10–20 years. The fruits are edible, if strong-tasting. Some people make jams or preserves from them. It is not advisable to eat the pits.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Lapins cherry</span> Edible fruit cultivar

    Lapins is a cultivar of cherry. It is a hybrid of the Van and Stella cultivars. It has been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

    <i>Prunus <span style="font-style:normal;">sect.</span> Prunus</i> Section of plants

    Prunus sect. Prunus is a section of Prunus subg. Prunus. It contains species of Eurasian plum.

    References

    1. "Prunus cerasifera Ehrh". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
    2. 1 2 UConn Horticulture Archived 14 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine
    3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stace, C. A. (2010). New Flora of the British Isles (Third ed.). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521707725.
    4. Altervista Flora Italiana, Prunus cerasifera Ehrh. includes photos and European distribution map
    5. "UC/JEPS: Jepson Manual treatment for Prunus cerasifera". berkeley.edu.
    6. Flora of China, Prunus cerasifera Ehrhart, 1789. 樱桃李 ying tao li
    7. Flora of North America, Prunus cerasifera Ehrhart, 1784. Cherry plum, myrobalan
    8. "University of Washington Herbarium Image Collection - Burke Museum". washington.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-06-27.
    9. "Calflora taxon report, University of California: Prunus cerasifera". calflora.org.
    10. "All about plums – Juicy facts of Prunus domestica". Garden Museum. Retrieved 1 March 2024./
    11. "Is the European plum, Prunus domestica L., a P. cerasifera EHRH. x P. spinosa L. allo-polyploid?". Springer Nature. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
    12. Titmarsh, Alan (2008). The Kitchen Gardener. BBC Books. p. 247.
    13. 1 2 Pissard Plum Fact Sheet
    14. "RHS Plant Selector Prunus cerasifera 'Nigra' AGM / RHS Gardening". Apps.rhs.org.uk. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
    15. "Prunus × cistena". RHS. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
    16. Plant Facts, Prunus x cistena - Purpleleaf Sand Cherry (Rosaceae)
    17. Nazareth College, Purpleleaf Sand Cherry Prunus x cistena Archived 2016-03-06 at the Wayback Machine /
    18. Thundercloud Fact Sheet