An apricot is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus Prunus.
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.
The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in Prunus subgenus Cerasus. "Sakura" usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of Prunus serrulata, not trees grown for their fruit. Cherry blossoms have been described as having a vanilla-like smell, which is mainly attributed to coumarin.
Prunus subg. Padus is a subgenus of Prunus, characterised by having racemose inflorescences. Padus was originally a distinct genus, but genetic and morphological studies have shown that Padus is polyphyletic. It has been proposed that all the racemose taxa within Prunus are incorporated into a broad-sense Prunus subg. Padus.
Prunus cerasifera is a species of plum known by the common names cherry plum and myrobalan plum. It is native to Southeast Europe and Western Asia, and is naturalised in the British Isles and scattered locations in North America. 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, or perhaps the sole parent. This would make it a parent of most of the commercial varieties of plum in the UK and mainland Europe - Victoria, greengages, bullace etc.
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 serotina, commonly called black cherry, wild black cherry, rum cherry, or mountain black cherry, is a deciduous tree or shrub in the rose family Rosaceae. 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.
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 maackii, commonly called the Manchurian cherry or Amur chokecherry, is a species of cherry native to Korea and both banks of the Amur River, in Manchuria in northeastern China, and Amur Oblast and Primorye in southeastern Russia. It used to be considered a species of Prunus subg. Padus, but both morphological and molecular studies indicate it belongs to Prunus subg. Cerasus.
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 jamasakura, the Japanese mountain cherry, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae that is endemic to Japan.
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 tenella, the dwarf Russian almond, is a species of deciduous shrub in the genus Prunus, native to steppes of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia, as well as dry open sites of Caucasus, Western and Central Asia.
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.
Prunus subg. Prunus is a subgenus of Prunus. This subgenus includes plums, apricots and bush cherries. Some species conventionally included in Prunus subg. Amygdalus are clustered with plum/apricot species according to molecular phylogenetic studies. Shi et al. (2013) has incorporated subg. Amygdalus into subg. Prunus, thereby including almonds and peaches in this subgenus. The species in this subgenus have solitary flowers or 2–3 in a fascicle.
Prunus humilis is a species of bush cherry native to northern China. It is cultivated for its edible fruit. Chloroplast DNA sequencing has shown that its closest relative is Prunus dictyoneura, at least as far as chloroplasts are concerned.
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 dictyoneura is a species of bush cherry found in Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Ningxia, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces of China. A shrub 0.3 to 1.0 m tall, it prefers to grow in thickets in grasslands on hillsides from 400 to 1600 m above sea level. Chloroplast DNA sequencing has shown that its closest relative is Prunus humilis, at least as far as chloroplasts are concerned.
Prunus pogonostyla, the hairy-style cherry, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae, native to Manchuria, southeastern China, and Taiwan. A shrub or tree reaching 1.5 m (5 ft), with pink flowers, it is typically found growing on forested hillsides from 300 to 800 m.
