Prunus fruticosa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Prunus fruticosa | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||||||
| Prunus fruticosa Pall. |
Prunus fruticosa (European Dwarf, Dwarf, European Ground, Ground , Mongolian or steppe Cherry ) is a deciduous, xerophytic, winter-hardy, cherry-bearing shrub native to Ciscaucasia, western Siberia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Belarus, Moldova, western Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Italy and Romania. [1][2][3][4] As a shrub it grows 1-2 m high and as wide, in almost any soil, but best in loamy soil, spreading via suckers. Roots are abundant.
The plant requires full sun; that is, it is a steppe rather than a forest plant, although it does form thickets at the edges of open forest. A recent study of stands in north Poland finds it is disappearing there by "genetic erosion" or "disappearance of typical morphological characters". It hybridizes naturally with Prunus cerasus to form P. x eminens[5] and with Prunus avium to form P. x stacei. Those forest plants are brought into closer contact with fruticosa by the modern disappearance of "contemporaneous sites of the steppe relics" once common in northern Poland, due to forest management since the 18th century, and the planting of stands of cerasus, which are more prolific in pollen.[6]
The bark is dark brown with yellow lenticels. The leaves are oblanceolate to obovate, about 12 mm by 6 mm, with acumenate apex, glabrous above, thick, serrated with crenate margin, dark green, yellow in fall, with a short petiole. The flowers are white hermaphroditic blossoms in leafy bracts located 2-4 each on short peduncles in sessile umbels. They are pollinated by bees. The plant flowers in May. The fruit is light to dark red, globose to pyriform, about 8-25 mm in diameter, ripening in August. The taste is sour-sweet, or tart.
Contents |
[edit] Uses
As a sour cherry, the fruit is used in cooking, and for jams and jellies. It has medicinal uses as an astringent.[7] The flowers are the basis of bee-keeping. The hardiness of the plant is a desirable quality in grafting and production of cultivars. It is often grafted to Prunus avium to form a tree with a round top. The roots of the shrub stabilize soil. It is planted in hedgerows as an ornamental windscreen.[4]
[edit] Classification
Linnaeus was the first to define the species according to the system of binomial nomenclature, which he invented, but he always tried to reference the names and descriptions of previous authors, in this case the Pinax of Gaspard Bauhin, to whom he gives credit as "Bauh. pin. 450."[8] The name assigned by Linnaeus is Prunus cerasus pumila, where pumila means "dwarf" (a rare word in Latin) and must come from Bauhin. He regards the shub as a variety of Prunus cerasus, the sour cherry.
It was first authoritatively defined by Peter Simon Pallas, the German naturalist invited by Catherine the Great to work in St. Petersburg. His unfinished Flora Rossica, a description of all the plants in the Russian Empire, dedicates one page to Prunus fruticosa, a shrub found in campis Isetensibus, "in the plains of the Iset;" that is, the Siberian steppe.[9] He states the Linnaean synonym, giving the same reference to Bauhin, but makes the variety into a species, Pr. fruticosa. The last paragraph of Page 19 states his reasons for the classification, which have nothing to do with the name, but are in true Linnaean cryptic form, in this case a pun.
The two Latin words of the pun are fructus or frux, from fruor, "enjoy" - a fruit is a result enjoyed - and frutex, "shrub", adjective fruticosus, "bushy", from a totally different root. Prunus is a grammatical feminine, so Prunus fruticosa agrees in gender. However, Pallas says Haec mihi tantum fructibus suis innotuit, qui distinctam itidem speciem indicare videntur, "It came to my attention at last because of its fruit, which repeatedly seemed to indicate a distinct species." The fruit seemed fere Pruni forma, "nearly in the form of Prunus", especially because praedita oblongo nucleo, "furnished with an oblong seed." So, Pallas moved it from Cerasus to Prunus.
Meanwhile quite independently Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (Jacq.) published his own name,[10] also selecting Prunus, utilising a Latinized Hellenic name from Pliny the Elder, chamaecerasi, plural of an implied chamaecerasus from Greek χαμαικέρασος, "ground cherry." Pliny bundles it with a Macedonian shrub, stating only that it is less than 3 cubits high.[11]
In 1925 Georg Gjurij Nikolaewitch Woronow (Voronov), 1874-1931, known botanically as (Ju.N, G., G.N. or GJN) Woronow, made an unsuccessful effort to retain Cerasus as a genus name and move fruticosa to it, creating another synonym, Cerasus fruticosa.[12]
[edit] References
- ^ U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Prunus fruticosa Pall. (html). Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) Taxonomy for Plants.
- ^ Loudon, John Claudius (1838). Arboretum Et Fruticetum Britannicum: Or, The Trees and Shrubs of Britain, .... London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, page702. Under C. chamaecerasus. Downloadable Google Books.
- ^ Bailey, L.L. (1916). The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. New York: The Macmillan Company, page 2386.
- ^ a b Dzhangaliev, A.D.; Salova, T.N. & Turekhanova, P.M. (2003), “The Wild Fruit and Nut Plants of Kazakhstan”, in Janick, Jules, Horticultural Previews, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 305-371, ISBN 0-471-21968-1
- ^ U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Prunus fruticosa Pall. (html). Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) Taxonomy for Plants.
- ^ Boratyński, Adam; Lewandowska, Amelia; Ratyńska, Halina (2003). "Cerasus fruticosa Pall. (Rosaceae) in the region of Kujavia and South Pomerania (N Poland)". Dendrobiology 49: pages 3–13.
- ^ Mongolian Cherry under External links below.
- ^ Linnaei, Caroli (1753). Species Plantarum. Holmiae: Impensis Laurentii Salvii, page 474.
- ^ Pallas, P.S. (MDCCLXXXIV). Flora Rossica Edita Iussu et Auspiciis Augustissimae Rossorum Imperatricis Catharinae II Magnae, Piae, Felicis, Patriae Matris. Petropoli: E. Typographia Imperiali J.J. Weitbrecht, page 19. The title at the top of the page bears the cryptic notation "Tab. VIII. B."
- ^ Jacquin, N.J. (1786). Collectanea ad Botanicum, Chemiam et Historiam Naturalem Spectantia: Volume I, page 133. The plant gets a full-page illustration in Icon. pl. rar., or Jacquin, Nicolao Josepho (ab Anno 1781 ad 1786). Icones Plantarum Rariorum: Vol. I. Vindobonae: Prostant apud Christianicum Fredericum Wappler, Tabula (t.) 90.
- ^ Naturalis Historia, Book 15, Article 104.
- ^ "Trudy po Prikladnoi Botanike, Genetikei Selektsii" (1925) 14 (3): page 52. Known botanically as Trudy Prikl. Bot. Selekc., translated as Bulletin of Applied Botany, of Genetics, and Plant-breeding.
[edit] External links
- Mongolian Cherry (Prunus fruticosa) (pdf). North Dakota State University (NDSU).
