Prunus avium (Wild cherry)

Description : Wild Cherry or Gean, Prunus avium L.; is found in woods and hedges, and generally distributed ; common in beechwoods ; sometimes nearly 100 ft. high, with a girth up to 12 ft. ; trunk often unbranched to a considerable height, and covered with a thin smooth greyish bark which peels off in transverse strips ; branches long and spreading, of two kinds, long shoots, and very short shoots, the long shoots continuing to elongate, the short shoots bearing an annual crop of flowers and, or, leaves ; long shoots smooth between the short shoots, and tinged with purple ; short shoots scarred by the stalks of the leaves of previous years ; current season's leaves produced from within a cluster of leaf-scales of various shapes ; inner scales very hairy inside ; leaf-stalks bear a pair of glands (extra-floral nectaries) near the top or almost on the base of the leaf-margin ; flowers appear at the same time as the leaves which attain their full size when the fruit is ripe; young leaves often with gland-tipped teeth; mature leaves elliptic or obovate, pointed, rather coarsely but bluntly toothed; hairs confined to the axils of the nerves and to the nerves ; stipules narrow, margined by glands ; flowers 2-6 in a cluster, with stalks up to in. long ; calyx-lobes reflexed; petals white, finely veined ; stamens about 25, with long slender fila¬ments and small rounded anthers attached in the middle ; style 1, slender, as long as the stamens; fruit globose, reddish, 1-seeded, seed furrowed along one edge (family Rosaceae).

Prunus avium is a very widely distributed tree, found in nearly the whole of Europe, as far north as Bergen in Norway, and south to Asia Minor and the Caucasus ; being very ornamental in flower, it has been much planted, especially in parts of Ger¬many, where it is grown alongside the highways. It is con¬sidered to be a native of the southern counties of England. In Scotland it is usually called Gean. The wood is scarce, but is one of the best native timbers for inside work, possessing a fine even grain and taking a good surface and polish. It is likely to be confused with only one other native species, P. cerasus L., which, however, never becomes a tree, but remains a bushy shrub with much-branched stems, and from the roots are produced numerous suckers.