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 in the flowering plant family Rosaceae that includes plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, being native to the North American temperate regions, the neotropics of South America, and temperate and tropical regions of Eurasia and Africa, There are about 340 accepted species as of March 2024. Many members of the genus are widely cultivated for their fruit and for decorative purposes. Prunus fruit are drupes, or stone fruits. The fleshy mesocarp surrounding the endocarp is edible while the endocarp itself forms a hard, inedible shell called the pyrena. This shell encloses the seed, which is edible in some species, but poisonous in many others. Besides being eaten off the hand, most Prunus fruit are also commonly used in processing, such as jam production, canning, drying, and the seeds for roasting.
Prunus serrulata or Japanese cherry is a species of cherry tree that grows naturally in Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam, 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 japonica, also called Japanese bush cherry, Oriental bush cherry, or Korean bush cherry is a shrub species in the genus Prunus that is widely cultivated for ornamental use. Its native range extends from Central China through to the Korean peninsula.
Dwarf cherry as a name has been used for at least three species of small cherry trees:
The marasca cherry is a type of sour Morello cherry known only from cultivation. It is reputed to attain its finest flavor when grown in coastal Croatia.
The Evans Cherry also sold under the name 'Bali', is a sour cherry cultivar rediscovered in an old orchard near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Cherries had not been considered viable in the harsh climate of the Canadian prairies, yet the specimen, discovered by Ieuan Evans, had been growing there since the 1920s. Grown on its own rootstock and self-pollinating, the Evans Cherry displays white blossoms in spring and bears abundant fruit.
Griotte de Kleparow is a dark-red morello, or Griotte, type of cherry which originated from the outskirts of Lviv, modern Ukraine.
Prunus necrotic ringspot virus (PNRSV) is a plant pathogenic virus causing ring spot diseases affecting species of the genus Prunus, as well as other species such as rose and hops. PNRSV is found worldwide due to easy transmission through plant propagation methods and infected seed. The virus is in the family Bromoviridae and genus Ilarvirus. Synonyms of PNRSV include European plum line pattern virus, hop B virus, hop C virus, plum line pattern virus, sour cherry necrotic ringspot virus, and peach ringspot virus.
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 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.
The Montmorency cherry is a variety of sour cherry grown in Europe, Canada, United States, particularly in the Grand Traverse Bay region of Northwest Michigan, Door County, Wisconsin, and parts of Indian Administered Kashmir. Montmorency cherries are part of the lighter-red Amarelle cultivar of sour cherries, rather than the darker-red Morello cultivar. Michigan produces over 90,000 tons of Montmorency cherries each year.
Cherry Bounce is a type of liqueur made by infusing old French brandy with Prunus cerasus, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar. Some recipes use rum, whiskey or vodka instead of brandy.
Prunus avium, commonly called wild cherry, sweet cherry or gean 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.
Little cherry disease or LChD, sometimes referred to as little cherry, K & S little cherry or sour cherry decline, is a viral infectious disease that affects cherry trees, most notably sweet cherries and sour cherries . Little cherry disease should not be confused with cherry buckskin disease, which is caused by Phytoplasma. Note that both diseases are among the diseases referred to as cherry decline.
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.
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.
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.
The Balaton cherry is a cultivar of sour cherry native to Hungary, where it was originally named Újfehértói Fürtös. It was introduced to the United States in the 1980s and is now grown there commercially.
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.
