[Prunus Avium.[Y] Nat. Ord.—Rosaceæ; Linn.—Icosand. Monogy.]
[Y] Generic character. Calyx inferior, 5-cleft. Petals 5. Drupe roundish, covered with bloom; the stone furrowed at its inner edge.
The Cherry, in a wild state, is indigenous in Central Europe, and is also found in Russia up to 56° N. lat. In England, it is met with in woods and hedges; and is found apparently wild in Scotland and Ireland.
The Wild Cherry has grown in this country from fifty to eighty-five feet in height. In cultivation, whether in woods or gardens, it may, in point of general appearance, be included in these forms:—Large trees with stout branches, and shoots proceeding from the main stem, nearly horizontally; fastigiate trees, or with the branches appressed to the stem, of a smaller size; and small trees with weak wood, and branches divergent and drooping. The leaves vary so much in the cultivated varieties, that it is impossible to characterise the sorts by them; but, in general, those of the large trees are largest, and the lightest in colour, and those of the slender-branched trees the smallest, and the darkest in colour; the flowers are also largest on the large trees. The specific characters of the Wild Black Cherry may be thus stated:—Leaves drooping, oblong, obovate, pointed, serrated, somewhat pendant, slightly pubescent on the under side, furnished with two glands at the base, and downy beneath. Flowers white, in nearly sessile umbels, not numerous. The colour of the fruit is a very deep, dark red, or black; the flesh is of the same colour, small in quantity, austere and bitter before it comes to maturity, and insipid when the fruit is perfectly ripe. The nut is oval or ovate, like the fruit, firmly adhering to the flesh, and very large in proportion to the fruit. The juice is mostly coloured: and the skin does not separate from the flesh.
Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit of P. Avium.
As a tree, the Wild Cherry is not only valuable for its timber, but for the food which it supplies to birds, by increasing the number of which, the insects which attack trees of every kind are materially kept down. This is one reason why Cherry trees are generally encouraged in the forests of France and Belgium: an additional reason, in Britain, is the nourishment which they afford to singing birds, particularly to the blackbird and thrush, and while any are to be found on the trees, they may be said to convert them into musical bowers. As an ornamental tree it is also worth cultivating, as it produces a profusion of flowers from an early age, and at an early period of the year; these from their snowy whiteness, contrast well with the blossom of the almond and the scarlet thorn. Its foliage is also handsome, though rather too uniform and unbroken to produce picturesque effect; in the autumn, when it assumes a deep purplish-red colour, it gives a great richness to the landscape, and contrasts well with the yellows and browns which predominate at that season.
The Wild Cherry is also recommended for the copse, because it produces a strong shoot, and will shoot forth from the roots as the elm, especially if you fell lusty trees. In light ground it will increase to a goodly tall tree, of which some have been known to attain the height of more than eighty-five feet. Sir T. D. Lauder says, "It may very well be called a forest-tree, seeing that in many parts of Scotland it is almost as numerous, and propagates itself as fast as the birch; it grows, moreover, to be a very handsome timber-tree, and the wood of it makes very pretty furniture. In form, it is oftener graceful than grand; and its foliage is rather too sparse to produce that tufty effect which gives breadth of light and depth of shadow enough to please the painter's eye. But on the cliffs of romantic rivers, such as the Findhorn, and other Scottish streams of the same character, where it is stinted of soil, it often shoots from the crevices of the rocks in very picturesque forms; and the scarlet of its autumnal tint, when not in excess, sometimes produces very brilliant touches in the landscape, when the neighbouring trees happen to be in harmony with it;" and if "merely considered as a natural object, nothing can be more splendid than its appearance when covered with a full blow of flowers in spring, or more gorgeous than the hue of its autumnal livery."