Prunus padus Seeds | Bird Cherry

Bird Cherry (Prunus padus) seed — Bird Cherry (*Prunus padus*): Rosaceae — the cherry, plum and almond genus, with this species among the few that flower on long hanging spikes, native to Northern Eurasia, from Ireland and northern Britain across Scandinavia and Russia to Siberia and Kamchatka, south to the mountains of central Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Asia Minor.

LATIN NAME: Prunus padus

COMMON NAME: Bird Cherry, Hackberry

Plant Profile

Trees usually reach eight to fifteen metres, with a rounded crown and a trunk that stays smooth and grey-brown for years, marked by horizontal corky lenticels. Leaves are alternate, elliptical and finely toothed, dull green above and paler beneath, and they open at about the same time as the flowers, so the racemes are never seen against bare wood. The white five-petalled flowers are followed by small round drupes that turn from red to glossy black, each with a single stone. The fragrance is sweet and heavy, and the smell of crushed bark is sharper.

The fruit is bitter and astringent and people rarely bother with it, but thrushes, blackbirds, waxwings and foxes take it readily; the stones pass through the gut intact and are deposited under trees and along hedgerows, which is how the species colonises new ground. The tree also holds two very different insect associations. The bird cherry-oat aphid winters as an egg on the twigs and leaves, then migrates in numbers to cereals and grasses in spring, making this woodland tree part of the pest cycle of arable land. In years when the aphid is scarce, the spring foliage is left to the caterpillars.

Small ermine moths lay their eggs on the twigs, and the larvae that hatch spin silk, feeding together inside a web that can extend over whole branches of a hedgerow tree. In an outbreak year the foliage is stripped to a lace of veins and the white silk nests are obvious from a distance. The tree usually refoliates in the same season, but bud set for the following year suffers, and the damage is worst on trees grown in isolation from the mixed woodland the group evolved in.

Science & Biotechnology

Bird cherry tissue carries cyanogenic glycosides, chiefly prunasin and its relatives, together with the enzyme that releases hydrogen cyanide from them when cells are crushed. Wilted leaves and damaged bark are more dangerous than intact tissue for that reason, and the seed stones are the most concentrated part; grazing animals are the usual casualties. The same chemistry underlies the old medicinal use of the bark as a bitter tonic and fever remedy, and the practice of hanging twigs to deter insects, which is a rational response to a plant full of deterrent compounds.

Uses & Benefits

North American woods carry their own racemose stone fruits, and these are the plants most often confused with the bird cherry in catalogues. The bird cherry can be told by its longer racemes, its smooth rather than sharply pointed leaves, and the small glands on the stalk; the American species generally have broader, coarser leaves and fruit that ripens earlier in the season. Names have travelled badly in this group, and a plant sold simply as a wild cherry may be any of several species.

Growing from Seed

This is one of the most widely distributed of all small trees, running in a broad belt through damp woodland, stream sides, ravine floors and the edges of alder carr from western Europe to the Pacific coast of Russia, and extending into Japan and Korea. It prefers soils that stay moist and tolerates cold and short growing seasons, which is why it reaches high latitudes and considerable altitude in the mountains of central Asia. In North America it is planted well outside that range, where it is known as the Mayday tree.

In Siberia the dried fruit is ground into a dark aromatic flour used as a filling for pies and pastries and as a flavouring for drinks, turning a bitter astringent berry into something prized. The wood is hard, fine-grained and reddish-brown, and it takes a polish, so it has served for small turnery, handles and inlay. As a garden tree it earns its place in damp cold ground where flowering cherries fail, and its compact size suits small plots and vehicle verges; the long racemes are good for cutting, though the scent indoors is strong.

Clean the stones and either sow them at once into a frame or store them in damp sand until winter, since the seed needs cold before it will sprout; a stone left dry on a shelf may sit for an extra year. Use a loam-based compost with grit through it, cover the stones with about two centimetres of the mix, and keep them outside through the cold. Pot the seedlings on when the first true leaf has expanded, and grow them in deep containers for two seasons before planting out, because the root system needs to be substantial. Plant into moist but free-draining ground at the same depth as in the pot, spacing garden trees five to six metres apart and street trees further where the crown can spread. Water well through the first summers, mulch with compost or leafmould, and remove the root suckers as they appear.

Our Take

Plant this where the soil stays cool and damp and you will get a tree that flowers reliably in cold districts where most cherries sulk. I keep it near the mahaleb cherry, another white spring tree for dry ground, and behind the wild cherry so the racemes have a dark mass to open against. In the damper corner of a wildlife garden, the chokecherry of North America does much the same job for birds.

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