Prunus avium, Wild Cherry

Wild Cherry or Common Cherry is a deciduous tree, growing up to 20 meters high.

Young trees have symmetrical conical crown, becoming rounded to irregular on old trees.

It prefers well-drained moisture retentive soils. Succeed in light shade, but the fruits are better when the tree is on sun.

This Wild Cherry is located in Longford Park, part of the boundary between the less maintained area and the former golf playground. It is still very young, self seeded right next to an old willow tree. Soil looks moist and well-drained. There is also enough sunlight for it, despite the towering willow. 

Bark is purplish-brown with prominent horizontal grey-brown lenticels becoming thicker, darker and fissured on old trees.

Leaves are alternate, simple ovoid-acute, 7 - 14 cm long. In autumn they turn orange, pink or red before fall.

Flowers are produced at the same time as the leaves early in the spring, born in corymbs of two to six, each flower  with five pure white petals, which are hermaphroditic.

Fruits are bright red to dark purple when mature in midsummer and also edible. Each fruit contains a single hart-shell stone and a seed inside of it.