Prunus fruticosa Pall.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Prunus fruticosa' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/prunus/prunus-fruticosa/). Accessed 2024-12-06.

Genus

Common Names

  • Ground Cherry

Synonyms

  • P. chamaecerasus Jacq.

Glossary

glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
pendent
Hanging.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Prunus fruticosa' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/prunus/prunus-fruticosa/). Accessed 2024-12-06.

A deciduous shrub 1 to 3 ft high, of low, spreading habit, with glabrous round twigs. Leaves obovate to narrowly oval, tapering to both ends, from 34 to 2 in. long, 14 to 34 in. wide, with shallow, rounded teeth, dark glossy green, and quite glabrous; stalk 18 to 14 in. long. Flowers white, 34 in. across, produced in usually stalkless umbels of about four from buds on the previous year’s shoots, each flower on a slender stalk 12 to 1 in. long. Fruits about the size of a large pea, very deep reddish purple.

Native of continental Europe and parts of Siberia; cultivated in England for more than three centuries. It is a shrub of neat and pleasing habit, forming naturally a low, mound-like mass of slender branches, and wearing a very healthy aspect because of the deep shining green of its foliage. In gardens it is rarely seen except grafted standard high on a cherry stock. In this way its branches form a mop-headed mass with the lower branches pendent of their own weight. The fruits have a cherry flavour, but are too harsh and acid to be palatable. It blossoms in early May.


P × eminens Beck

Synonyms
Cerasus intermedia Host
P. reflexa Hort., not Walp

The cherry that has been grown in gardens under the name P. reflexa is thought to be a hybrid between P. fruticosa and P. cerasus. It differs from P. fruticosa in its more robust habit and sturdier branches, its more deeply and irregularly toothed leaves (of the same shining dark green), and its shorter-stalked flowers. A very pretty small tree with pendulous branches. Hybrids between the two species are fairly common in the wild.

'Variegata'

leaves stained more or less with yellowish white, sometimes half the leaf being of this colour, the other half green.