March 9, 2014

Cherry Plum


The Cherry Plum (Prunus cerasifera) is the first of the Prunuses to flower.



This little tree is a cultivated species, but you find it quite often growing in the wild. It is often used as stock for fruit trees. Among the bushes that make hedges around fields and meadows, but also between the trees in a forest.






It flowers with a mass of pure white blossom. Every flower is pedunculated and has one stigma and about twenty stamen.




Like all Prunuses, the Cherry Plum has smooth greyish bark with slight horizontal stripes. In summer the little  plums appear, yellow, red or blue, round or oval, according to the subspecies. It is worthwhile to look out for a good tree. Sometimes the fruits are tasteless or sour, but in most cases they are sweet and perfumed.