Prunus nipponica Matsum.

A deciduous bush 8 to 16 ft high, or occasionally a bushy-headed tree up to 20 ft high; young shoots glabrous, grey by autumn, ultimately chestnut brown. Leaves ovate, sometimes obovate, with a long, tail-like point, and a usually rounded base, sharply and doubly toothed; thinly hairy when young, chiefly on the veins, 11⁄2 to 31⁄2 in. long, 1 to 13⁄4 in. wide; stalk 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long, glabrous. Flowers opening in May, solitary or in twos or threes, each on a glabrous or thinly hairy stalk 1⁄2 to 11⁄4 in. long; they are 3⁄4 to 1 in. wide, white or pale pink. Calyx-tube glabrous, funnel-shaped to bell-shaped; petals rounded and entire or notched at the end. Fruits black, globose, 1⁄3 in. wide.

Native of Japan; introduced to the Arnold Arboretum in 1915. There has been considerable confusion between this species, P. incisa, and P. apetala, all three distinguished by having black fruits and a leaf with a long tail-like apex and a conspicuous double toothing. It is distinct enough in other respects from P. apetala (q.v.), a cherry very downy or hairy in many of its parts. P. incisa is also more or less downy on the young shoots, leaf-stalk and calyx, the leaves are smaller, the branchlets never become bright brown as in P. nipponica, and the flowers are normally smaller.