Prunus emarginata

Oregon cherry
Prunus emarginata leaves and flowers
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Prunus
Subgenus: Cerasus
Species: P. emarginata
Binomial name
Prunus emarginata
(Dougl. ex Hook.) Eaton

Oregon cherry or Bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata) is a species of Prunus native to western North America, from British Columbia south to California, and east to western Wyoming and Arizona. It is often found in recently disturbed areas, open woods, on nutrient-rich soil.[1][2][3]

Contents

Description

Prunus emarginata is a deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 1–15 m tall with a slender oval trunk with smooth gray to reddish-brown bark with horizontal lenticels. The leaves are 2–8 cm long, thin, oval-shaped, and yellowish-green with unevenly-sized teeth on either side. The flowers are small, 10–15 mm diameter, with five white petals and numerous hairlike stamens; they are almond-scented, and produced in clusters in spring, and are pollinated by insects. The fruit is a juicy red or purple cherry 7–14 mm diameter, which, as the plant's English name suggests, are bitter. As well as reproducing by seed, it also sends out underground stems which then sprout above the surface to create a thicket.[2][3]

There are two varieties:[2][4]

Cultivation

It has hybridized with the introduced European Prunus avium in the Puget Sound area; the hybrid has been named as Prunus × pugetensis. It is intermediate between the parent species, but is nearly sterile, producing almost no cherries.[5]

Uses

The cherries are not very palatable and have been known to cause illness in humans, but animals, especially birds, forage on them.

Medicinal

Native tribes, most notably Kwakwaka'wakw, used other parts of the plant for medicinal purposes, such as poultices and bark infusions.[6] The isoflavone prunetin has been isolated for the first time by Finnemore in 1910 in the bark of P. emarginata[7].

References

  1. ^ Germplasm Resources Information Network: Prunus emarginata
  2. ^ a b c Plants of British Columbia: Prunus emarginata
  3. ^ a b Jepson Flora: Prunus emarginata
  4. ^ USDA Plants Profile: Prunus emarginata
  5. ^ Jacobson, A. L. & Zika, P. F. (2007). A new hybrid cherry, Prunus × pugetensis (P. avium × emarginata, Rosaceae), from the Pacific Northwest. Madroño 54: 74–85. Abstract
  6. ^ Casebeer, M. (2004). Discover California Shrubs. Sonora, California: Hooker Press. ISBN 0-9665463-1-8
  7. ^ Isoflavones. III. The structure of prunetin and a new synthesis of genistein. R. L. Shriner, C. J. Hull, J. Org. Chem., 1945, 10 (4), pp 288–291

External links

Media related to Prunus emarginata at Wikimedia Commons