Flora of New Zealand Series

sweet cherry

Deciduous, suckering, spreading tree, 5-12-(15) m high when mature, not armed; trunk tall. Lf petiole 12-60-(70) mm long, glabrous; blade ± thin, usually obovate to broadly elliptic, sometimes narrowly obovate or orbicular, (30)-40-130-(150) × (25)-30-60-(70) mm, acute to short-acuminate at apex, obtuse at base, glabrous or glabrate above, tomentose below when young (rarely glabrate), soon glabrous, 1-2-serrate with teeth obtuse or subacute; stipules acuminate, deciduous. Fls in umbel-like clusters of (1)-2-4, on very short shoots, not fragrant, pendent; pedicels (12)-25-50 mm long, green and glabrous. Hypanthium urceolate; sepals triangular, 3-5 mm long, blunt, glabrous, usually tinged purplish, soon becoming strongly reflexed. Petals usually 5 but sometimes many in double fls, (9)-11-19 × (5)-8-17 mm, ± broadly elliptic-oblong or elliptic-obovate, shallowly emarginate, white. Stamens ± = petals; filaments whitish. Fr. 8-17 mm diam. (to c. 30 mm in cultivation), globose or nearly so, glabrous, dark red, occasionally remaining pinkish red, usually ± sweet, sometimes rather bitter; stone smooth.

N.; S.: mainly in lowland districts, inland in the Hanmer area, Waimakariri Gorge, Garry R. and Mt Cook (Canterbury).

Europe 1872

Forest margins, roadsides, scrub, hedgerows.

FL Sep-Nov FT Nov-Feb.

P. avium, known as sweet cherry or mazzard, is widely grown for fr. in commercial orchards and gardens, particularly in C. Otago and Canterbury. It has also been used as a stock for grafting cvs of P. serrulata and in neglected gardens the P. avium stock often replaces the P. serrulata cv. The double white-flowered cv. 'Plena' is common in cultivation, but is sterile and not known to be wild although it grows in many old and abandoned gardens.

Although P. avium can form fairly dense stands, these result from seedlings much more than from suckers as in the related P. cerasus.