Wild cherry

Family

Rosaceae

Habit

Tree

Height

19 m

Spread

12 m

Growth

fast

Lifespan

100 years

First yield

after 6 years

Yield per plant

up to 30 kg a year

Yield in cultivation

up to 6 t/ha

Energy yield

300 kcal per m² a year

Hardiness

zone 3–8

Shade tolerance

partial shade

Soil

Sand, Silt, Loam

Soil moisture

semi-dry – very moist

pH

5.5 – 7

Synonyms

Kirschbaum

Planned in gardens

5×

Times apply to the northern hemisphere in a temperate climate and shift with altitude and cultivar.

Edible: The fruit is edible either raw or cooked, with a taste that can range from sweet to bitter. It is not sour. Common uses for the fruit include making pies or preserves. It has a water content of around 78% and sugar content between 8.5-14%. The fruit is approximately 20 mm in size and has a sizable seed inside. This seed can be consumed raw or cooked, as long as it is not overly bitter. Cutting into the rind can yield an edible gum.

Medicinal: Cherry stalks are the traditional remedy: a decoction of the dried fruit stalks is taken as a mild diuretic and astringent and was used in folk medicine for cystitis, oedema, diarrhoea, anaemia and bronchial complaints. None of these uses has been confirmed by clinical study, so the tea is best regarded as a household tradition rather than a treatment. Resin exuding from the trunk was inhaled as a steam against persistent coughs. As in all Prunus species, seeds and leaves contain cyanogenic glycosides that release hydrogen cyanide on chewing; the kernels are not a food and the leaves do not belong in infusions. The flesh of the fruit is harmless and supplies vitamins A, C and E, folate and potassium.

Other uses: A green dye can be obtained from the leaves, while a dark gray to green dye can be extracted from the fruit. The bark typically has low tannin content, occasionally reaching up to 16%. The wood, known for its firm, compact, and silky grain, is utilized in turning, furniture making, and instrument crafting.

Requires well-drained, moisture-retaining soil and thrives in light shade, but fruits better in a sunny location. It prefers loamy soil with some chalk content, but can suffer from chlorosis if there is an excess. This species grows quickly in deep, moist soils with shallow roots, casting light shade and not tolerating heavy shade. It produces many root suckers, forming thickets, especially after the main stem is cut down. A parent to various cultivated sweet cherry forms, especially the black-fruited ones, they can be trained against a wall in limited spaces or at the edge of their climatic range. While most varieties prefer sunny south- or west-facing walls, they are not suitable for east- or north-facing ones. The main challenges of wall training are its self-sterility, needing different varieties for cross-pollination, and its vigorous growth that is hard to manage. Members of this genus have shallow roots and tend to form runners if roots are damaged. It attracts insects and provides food for birds. Not a good companion for potatoes due to disease susceptibility and wheat growth suppression. It also doesn't thrive near plum trees due to root exudation issues. Particularly vulnerable to honey fungus.

The wild form is raised from seed. The stones are cleaned of pulp from fully ripe fruit and cold-moist stratified over winter; they germinate the following spring provided they are protected from mice. Only the wild form comes reasonably true — which is why cherry seedlings remain the classic rootstock for sweet and ornamental cherries, producing large-crowned, long-lived trees. To propagate a particular selection, graft: budding in August or whip grafting in late winter, onto seedling stock for standards, or onto dwarfing types such as Gisela where a small crown is wanted. Cuttings are of little use for wild cherry. Root suckers form mainly after root damage or after the main stem is felled, and can then be used for propagation.

The wild cherry is a first-rate tree ecologically as well. Its April flowering falls into a period when little else is out, making it good bee forage for honeybees, bumblebees and early-flying solitary bees. The fruit is taken by blackbirds, starlings, hawfinches and crows — the German name "bird cherry" is well earned — and also feeds mice, martens, fox, badger and wild boar, all of which disperse the stones. The foliage supports numerous moth and butterfly caterpillars, and the bark, which peels in horizontal bands, offers hiding places for spiders and insects. Old trees with cavities and broken limbs are used for nesting by tits, nuthatches and starlings.

Special features: on forest edges and in sunny hilly areas; leaves used as tobacco; e.g., cherry branches cut on December 4th bloom by December 24th; cherry pit contains the stone fruit-typical amygdalin/vitamin B17 =+ also collected for hand warmers/cherry pit pillows; ~0.4% of German forests; 1500 kWh/m²; 4.5 kWh/kg

Europe, the Caucasus and north-west Africa. The wild cherry grows from southern Scandinavia to southern Italy and North Africa, and eastwards through Turkey into the Caucasus. It is native throughout Central Europe and climbs to about 1,400 metres in the Alps. As the wild ancestor of the sweet cherry it was taken into cultivation well before the Christian era and spread northwards as a cultivated form through the Roman Empire, which is why wild and cultivated forms now stand side by side in many places and interbreed. It reaches an age of 80 to 90 years, occasionally up to 150.

The wild cherry is a tree of deciduous mixed woodland and hardwood floodplain forest; in beech and oak woods it usually occurs scattered rather than forming stands, and as a fast-growing pioneer it colonises banks, woodland edges and fallow ground. It requires deep, humus-rich, free-draining loam of good nutrient status and rather calcareous character; it avoids acid peat and shallow limestone soils. It needs plenty of light — full sun to light partial shade — and juvenile growth of up to seventy centimetres a year lets it close gaps in the canopy quickly. It is hardy to around minus twenty-eight degrees Celsius.