Prunus avium
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
sweet cherry
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Flower colours
White
Detailed description
Deciduous suckering spreading tree, 5~12m high when mature, not armed; trunk tall. Leaf petiole 12~60mm long, glabrous; blade reasonably thin, usu. obovate to broadly elliptic, sometimes narrowly obovate or orbicular, 40~130 x 30~60mm, acute to short-acuminate at apex, obtuse at base, glabrous or glabrate above, tomentose below when yong, soon glabrous, 1~2-serrate with teeth obtuse or subacute; stipules acuminate, deciduous. Flowers in umbel-like clusters of 2~4, on very short shoots, unfragrant, pendent; pedicels 25~50mm long, green and glabrous. Hypanthium urceolate; sepals triangular, 3~5mm long, blunt, glabrous, usu. tinged purplish, soon becoming strongly reflexed. Petals usu. 5 but sometimes many in double flowers, 11~19 x 8~17mm, broadly elliptic-oblong or elliptic-obovate, shallowly emarginate, white. Stamens approx. = petals; filaments whitish. Fruit 8~17mm diam., globose or nearly so, glabrous, dark red, occasionally remaining pinkish-red, usu. sweet, sometimes bitter; stone smooth. (-Webb et. al., 1988)
Similar taxa
A deciduous, suckering, spreading tree 5-12m when mature; flowers in clusters of 2-4 on short shoots; white petals; dark red fruit 8-17mm diameter (Webb et al., 1988).
Habitat
Terrestrial. Forest margins, roadsides, scrub, hedgerows
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Rosaceae
Ecology
Flowering
September, October, November
Fruiting
November to February
Year naturalised
1872
Origin
Europe
Reason for introduction
Agricultural
Life cycle and dispersal
Perennial. Although it can fom fairly dense stands, these result from seedlings rather than from suckers. Seeds dispersed by birds (Atkinson 1997).
Other information
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
PRUAVI