Cherry plum. Used as rootstock, sometimes planted as an orchard tree, comes up wild (although not native). Most of the common purple-leaved plums there are forms of this species. Other purple-leaved plum cultivars are hybrids. By now at least 60 introductions have been made, although some names are synonyms.
Hi Ron, Thank you so much. You are so helpful and you know your subject well. What a delight to be involved in this venture. At least i am aware of the plums and the cherry in my neighbourhood. Bee Lee.
Japanese plum is also flowering at this time. To check this tree, compare it up close with known Japanese and cherry plums elsewhere. The cherry plum can often be seen coming out of the bottom of grafted purple-leaved plums. The Japanese plum is much-planted in home orchards here, although it is not the prime climate for many of the cultivars. Snip representative flowering twigs and hold them close to each other, study their anatomical features. Superficially similar kinds of trees can often be quickly seen to actually be different using this method. It also works the other way, sameness of two samples being rapidly apparent.
