Prunus wilsonii Seeds | Wilson Cherry
LATIN NAME: Prunus wilsonii
COMMON NAME: Wilson Cherry
Plant Profile
Prunus wilsonii is a mountain cherry from western China, named for the plant collector Ernest Henry Wilson, who sent seed to Europe from Sichuan in the early 1900s. It makes a tree of ten to fifteen metres with a rounded crown and smooth, glossy, mahogany-brown bark that peels slightly on old trunks.
The flowers are small and white and open in April in long racemes, at the same time as the leaves are unfolding, so the tree never has the bare-branch effect of the Japanese cherries. The fruit is small, round and dark red, ripening to black in late summer, and it is taken by birds almost as soon as it colours. The leaves are long, narrow and finely toothed, with a pair of glands at the base of the blade.
Science & Biotechnology
The species belongs to the bird-cherry group, section Padus, and it is closely related to Prunus grayana of Japan and to Prunus virginiana of North America, a set of racemose cherries that ring the northern hemisphere. Wilson collected it in 1908 in western Sichuan at around 2,500 metres, and the material he sent became the basis of the garden stock.
The racemes are unusual among the Chinese cherries in being both long and erect, and the flowering sequence runs from the base of the raceme upward, which is why a single truss stays in bloom for three weeks. The bark contains coumarin, as do the bark and leaves of most bird cherries, and it gives the crushed twigs their sweet hay smell. The species is little changed in cultivation, since it has never been bred for garden purposes.
Uses & Benefits
This is a tree for a woodland garden or the edge of a large lawn, where its April racemes can be seen against a dark background, and where its bark can be admired in winter. It is not a plant for a small garden: the crown is wide and the tree resents being crowded.
In western China the wood is used locally for tool handles and for fuel, and the fruit is sometimes gathered for preserves, though it is thin-fleshed and mostly stone. The species is grown in arboreta as part of the Wilson collections, and it is one of the parents of several racemose cherry hybrids used in landscaping. It has no place in medicine: like all Prunus kernels, the stone contains cyanogenic glycosides and must not be eaten.
Growing from Seed
Sow the stones in autumn, either directly in a nursery bed or in deep pots of loam and grit, and leave them outside for the winter. The embryo needs a warm period first to complete its development, so seed collected green in July and sown at once germinates better than seed allowed to dry. Expect germination in the second spring even so.
Pot the seedlings on before the taproot coils, and plant out at two or three years old, in autumn, in deep, moisture-retentive soil. Give the young tree a mulch of leafmould and keep grass away from the trunk for the first four years. Pruning should be limited to removing dead wood in winter, since the tree makes a better shape unpruned and bleeds if cut in spring.
Our Take
A restrained mountain cherry with long white racemes and polished bark. It needs space and a woodland setting to look its best.
Related Reading
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