July 2026: Black Cherry

By Andy Mead

This black cherry (Prunus serotina) is off Wilson Downing Road, between Southern Middle School and Southern Elementary School, near the entrance to the city’s Meadowbrook Golf Course.

Native black cherry tree between Southern Middle and Southern Elementary Schools' campuses. Photo by Andy Mead.

The deciduous species, also known as wild black cherry or rum cherry, can be found from southeastern Canada through the eastern United States to eastern Texas. There are disjunct populations in central Texas and in the mountains of the southwestern U.S., Mexico and Guatemala.

Our native black cherry is a great tree for wildlife because its small fruit with a bitter-sweet flavor is eaten by a wide variety of birds, squirrels, deer, raccoon, opossum and black bears. It also is a host plant for the larva of more than 400 butterfly and moth species. The wood is highly valued for furniture, cabinets, paneling, professional and scientific instruments, handles and toys.

It is related to the sweet cherry, sour cherry and Japanese flowering cherry and in the same genus (Prunus) as plum, peach and almond trees. It can grow in full sun to partial shade and will tolerate both alkaline and acidic soils and tolerates a wide range of moisture levels. It has dark green alternate leaves two to five inches long and two to three inches wide with white flowers appearing in May that are six-inch pendulous racemes. 

Photo of Prunus serotina in flower. This is a native plant growing wild in Arlington county Virginia, USA. This species is a member of the Rosaceae family. Fritzflohrreynolds Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Pioneers soaked the berries in sugar, spices and alcohol for a drink called cherry bounce. Berries also are used to make jelly and wine. The bark is used medicinally in cherry bark syrup, a cough medicine. Wilted leaves of the black cherry tree are more toxic than fresh leaves. The bark, wilted leaves (from a broken branch), twigs and seeds are poisonous to people and livestock if consumed, but not to deer. Fallen leaves, when completely dry, lose their toxicity. 

Widespread attention landed on black cherry trees in the spring of 2001, when mares in Kentucky and surrounding states began aborting their foals. The problem, called mare reproductive loss syndrome (MRLS), was later found to be caused by mares ingesting an unusually large crop of eastern tent caterpillars, which favor black cherry trees, after a spring freeze. The University of Kentucky extension service now advises keeping pregnant mares out of pastures that have black cherry trees.

The national champion black cherry tree is in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Kentucky champion is in Clark County. What is believed to be the largest black cherry in Fayette County is on private land near Reservoir No. 4. It is visible from Squires Mill Road in The Peninsula neighborhood.

Prunus serotina fruit in late summer. Photo by Amy Steele.

Here are sites that will tell you more:

https://news.ca.uky.edu/article/warm-early-spring-means-early-eastern-tent-caterpillar-egg-hatch

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=prse2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvtXZXDxmCo

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2024-11-06_11_37_42_Black_Cherry_leaves_changing_color_in_autumn_along_Forest_Lane_in_the_Mountainview_section_of_Ewing_Township,_Mercer_County,_New_Jersey.jpg By Famartin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.