Identification: Colt - Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

[I have moved this out of a posting about several single-white trees, and added an intro] This tree at 8th and Arbutus is notable for its very numerous straight upright branches so densely packed that it has a fairly round overall shape. The round aspect is also a result of the uniform length of the branches. It appears to have been evenly trimmed, but if that was done at all, it's unlikely to have been done within several years. The blossoms are single, white, hanging in umbels with some pedicels being fairly long (6cm?).
[Edited by wcutler Oct 28, 2008: I've added a fall colour shot of this tree]


Joseph just sent me these three photos, which are a big improvement and which he didn't even have to get into the yard to get, or did you, Joseph?

This is growing out of the branch from the trunk with the red blood-looking splotch. It looks like when these were planted, someone stuck a bouquet in the ground of three branches of whatever and one of this thing.

 

Re: Sargentii - mid-season, pinky-white, upright, bronze leaves

I found a very unique tree at the corner of W 8th and Arbutus on April 16. Unfortunately this tree has already finished blooming. So it might be impossible to identify, but it looks like Sargentii of Wendy’s photos.
When I saw this tree from far away, I thought it was a purple-leaf Plum finishing. But it has cherry bark and flowers were in umbellate flower arrangement.
Characteristic of this cherry is very long stamens and narrow petals. Now there are brown leaves together and some parts of the bark are shiny. Those features reminded me Yama-Zakura (Japanese hill cherry or Japanese mountain cherry or Japanese wild cherry). Usually Yama-Zakura blooms very late after Somei-Yoshino and most of single ornamental cherries finished. But this tree bloomed very early and is finishing now.
It is very different from Sargentii cherry in QE Park.

 

Re: Sargentii - mid-season, pinky-white, upright, bronze leaves

I've been interested in figuring out the mystery tree at 8th and Arbutus for a long time. This year, I happened upon it when it was in full bloom, and when the gate was open, so I invited myself in to have a closer look (image below, left, from outside fence). It led me to exactly the same conclusions as Mariko.

[Edited by wcutler 2010feb22: this was copied from the Sargentii thread; I've removed the comments and photo that were replies to the Sargentii conversation there]

 

Re: Sargentii - mid-season, pinky-white, upright, bronze leaves

It's such a nice tree, and it's a "Still Unknown" in the now named Spires and other single white mystery trees thread (second-to-last set of photos in the original posting)[edited by wcutler: now the entire first posting of this thread]. The middle photo of Joseph's shows a corymb structure on the inflorescence to the upper left. This tree usually blooms before I'm ready for it.

 

Re: Sargentii - mid-season, pinky-white, upright, bronze leaves

Here are some leaf photos of the 8th and Arbutus as-yet-unidentified tree.

 

What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

This tree at 8th and Arbutus has been around in several postings. It's different from anything else we've seen, and is a nice tree, so I'm keen to have it identified. I'm moving most postings about it into this thread (so I guess they'll all show up before this explanatory posting).

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

This 8th and Arbutus tree is maybe 20% open on February 22, 2010, behind the UBC Okames, but ahead of the Kits Point Stellatas, which are not open yet, nor are any of the other normal March season cherries. It's nowhere near time for Yama-zakuras to be open here. In Seattle, which is usually (two weeks?) ahead of us, two trees that are known to be Yama-zakuras are not at all open.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Might be a rootstock, look at the habit - it's a bunch of low sprouts. When I grew Colt for a short time, to see the bloom it had pendent pink flowers. They smelled somewhat like melons, similar to Amaryllis belladonna. You might want to sniff this one, see if that feature is present.

A friend's sweet cherry has produced a hairy-parted rootstock sprout with pink flowers, but different from what I received as Colt. I am tempted to order and grow a range of clonal or at least named rootstock cultivars in order to learn to recognize and identify these when encountered in the general landscape.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Hmm. None of us has mentioned a fragrance. Douglas is usually good about that, and it's one he's visited several times.

Ron, you're suggesting that the whole tree is a rootstock tree, not just that it's on Colt rootstock, is that right? Are any of those rootstock trees early bloomers? The Aviums usually bloom late season.

There was that one shoot with red buds in the first posting - it sounds like that could have been from Colt.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

The single-trunked tree with the white flowers is the same as the one with the pink? I thought it was supposed to be another, which in the most recent shot looks to be a clump of stems from down low.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

That's the base of this same tree. Now two years later, I wish I'd followed in a photo that trunk with the red splotch farther up to see if it was cut off or what, as there weren't any other red buds on the tree. Reading my description now, it sounds like that trunk didn't go anywhere. So either what we see was what was planted and there's one trunk from a Colt rootstock, or else Kanzan or something was planted and now all that's left are the three trunks from this single white rootstock and one not-quite-dead trunk with the two emerging red flowered branches.

I'll have to see if I can talk myself back into the yard to get better info.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

I got pictures of the trunk with the red splotch. It is cut off and does appear dead - the two little shoots with the red buds don't seem to be there. So maybe that was the end of the whatever it was that was really planted.

So what we know about what it is that might be distinctive is that it blooms at Beni-shidare and Pandora time (so before Somei-yoshino), blossoms have a lot of very long stamens, and the leaves are double-serrated.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Yes on the fragrance! I don't know about melons - it smells like something is about as good as I'm able to do. Today the fragrance knocked me over - I hadn't even remembered to check for it.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Maybe straight Prunus pseudocerasus? I recall the 'Colt' understocks in the UBC orchard as less robust with shorter (and fewer?) stamens. Not that I actually had the foresight to take a picture when they were flowering.

I will try to get to the mystery tree in the next few days to make a closer examination (including the sniff test). The UBC trees are at least a couple of weeks behind.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

I understand that to be the species from which the 'Colt' cultivar was developed, is that right? The leaf description sounds right from this Flora of China page, but what about the length of the pedicels in the 1st, 2nd and 12th postings? Flora of China says "Pedicel 0.8–1.9 cm".

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

I think it is very to be Prunus pseudocerasus.

I checked Prunus pseudocerasus by Google and found the tree shape picture. Japanese name for Prunus pseudocerasus is Kara-mi-zakura. Kara means China and mi means fruits. So it means Chinese fruit Cherry. You can see Kara-mi-zakura on page 51 of Gakken’s ‘Flowering Cherries in Japan’. It says;
Kara-mi-zakura is distributed widely throughout China. Fruits are edible so it is planted from old times. Also in Shikoku, Southwest Island of Japan it is planted for fruits but not as large scale as Avium.
Nowadays people plant it for flowers because it blooms earlier than Somei-yoshino. So it is called as ‘peach cherry’ (Peach blooms before cherry in Japan.)

Picture there shows it has very long stamens.
Wendy, I think it has short pedicels when it starts blooming. Most of the early cherries have short pedicels because they start blooming when it is still cold.
One Question is it has fruits or not.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Mariko is right about pedicel length. Consider 'Jigatsu-zakura' or 'Autumnalis Rosea' with their nearly sessile early flowers.

'Colt' is a selection of a cross between Prunus avium and P. pseudocerasus. Again, as Ron says, it would be highly instructive to grow the various understocks to flowering for comparison purposes.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Well, do we have to wait for fruits, or can we name it 'Karami-zakura'?

Gakken shows lots of hairs on the pedicel and calyx, but the flora of China site says "Petiole 0.5–1.5 cm, glabrous or pilose", so that's fine that our photos don't show any hairs, and that site says "Inflorescences corymbose or subumbellate", so my comment about one of Joseph's photos showing a corymb structure (while most of them don't) is consistent with that too.

Common names I came across: Chinese Sour Cherry, Cambridge Cherry.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

I'm not ready to call it Prunus pseudocerasus yet. I need another look at it and the 'Colt' when it comes into flower.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Yes: Not a time to be shooting from the hip. Such trees can even be open-pollinated hybrid seedlings when it appears they may have been used as rootstocks.

No confirming matching live specimens of known reliable identification, clear photographs with diagnostically significant matching features visible, or reliable planting records (with photos or descriptions elsewhere showing the name tree was first planted under was correct) = no identification.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Looks like Mazzard cherry

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Well, it does have the single white blossoms, but Mazzards are not anywhere near in bloom yet. Mazzards are one of our latest bloomers, and this tree is in full bloom now right after our earliest bloomers.

Also, the Avium (Mazzard) sepals curl back, so the backs of the flowers seem to have circles rather than stars formed by the sepals, which is not the case on this tree.

And the leaf edges are different.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

No funny medicinal/melon fragrance from sweet cherry flowers either.

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

More photos of the cherry tree at 8th and Arbutus for your reference

 

Re: What cherry? Single white, early mid-season, dense thin upright straight branches

Oh, sure, now it gets reflexing sepals, as seen in Joseph's photos. Well, it's still not a mazzard, though maybe it was related to one
(it's been suggested to me)?