Spring cherries
Spring cherry © Wendy Cutler/VCBF
Spring cherry (and autumn cherry) - Prunus x subhirtella
Yoshino cherry - Prunus x yedoensis
Korean mountain cherry - Prunus serrulata var. pubescens
ID check
- Flowers on hairy stalks, in clusters of 2–5.
- Sepal lobes toothed.
- Leaf margins with pointed teeth, often with bristle-like tips.
- Leaves hairless above, hairy on veins beneath.
- Leaf stalk hairy.
Description
Spring cherry tree © Richard Webb, self-employed horticulurist, Bugwood.org
Trees
Rounded to wide-spreading trees up to 10–15m tall.
Bark
Grey-brown to dark brown.
Leaves
Leaf margins single- or double-toothed.
Flowers
20–35mm across, on hairy stalks. Sepal tube urn-shaped and constricted just below the mouth.
Ripe fruit
Roughly 10mm, black.
Notes
The flowers almost always carry some shade of pink, though this may fade with age.
The true spring cherry flowers in late spring. Weeping forms are often grown.
The autumn cherry is a cultivar of the spring cherry. It flowers throughout autumn and on until very early spring.
The Yoshino cherry is the national flower of Japan and is so common in the Japanese capital that it is also known as the Tokyo cherry. It is tolerant of air pollution.
Images
Spring cherry flowers.
© Courtesy W John Hayden, University of Richmond
Spring cherry tree.
© Richard Webb, Self-employed horticulurist, Bugwood.org
Spring cherry flowers.
© Wendy Cutler/VCBFDiagrams
These explain some of the important tree and plant parts mentioned on these factsheets.
Flower
Leaf parts
