[Edited by wcutler 20090515: This was labelled Prunus x pugetensis for about a year. I'm not convinced, and I have now merged it with another thread querying emarginata in which P. x pugetensis and cerasus were discussed. These are all very late cherries, and not really ornamentals.] I thought I found a bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata) in bloom May 13 in Stanley Park near the Japanese War Memorial Shirofugens, but my claim was met with a certain amount of incredulity, so I'm posting it here for confirmation or identification. It's a taller than broad tree with ball-shaped clusters of small single white flowers, green leaves, cherry-like striped bark. These are Elena Dopiro's photos.
Re: Bitter cherry or not a cherry? Single whites in clusters, very late season Maybe it's a hybrid: "Seattle's native cherry crosses with the introduced Mazzard cherry. Such hybrids have been seen between S Vancouver Island and Tacoma. To commemorate the hybrid's locality and its presently known center of distribution, Peter Zika and I propose to name it after Puget Sound. These hybrid trees appear intermediate between the two parents. In general, the hybrid is too robust and large in its leaves and flowers to be called Bitter cherry; it is too slender and hairy to be called Mazzard. It is very full-appearing while in flower, making a more showy display than that of Bitter cherry. Yet the flowers mostly set no fruit; most fruit set aborts; and though it can set some seemingly viable seeds, seedlings from the hybrid are not known to us. Hence, the hybrid seems not the least likely to prove invasive or weedy." --Arthur Lee Jacobson, TREES OF SEATTLE - SECOND EDITION I noticed hybrid-looking trees years ago but somehow mistakenly thought I had seen such a cross mentioned, with an existing hybrid binomial in Hitchcock/Cronquist, FLORA OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. Jacobson/Zika are or soon will be publishing the new combination Prunus X pugetensis formally. Multiple individuals of the hybrid can be spotted in some districts I pass through, it seems to have a tendency to produce distinctive bright greenish white flowers.
Avium or Emarginata?! It might be too late to start new thread because those cherries are finishing now, but for my curiosity and for next year I post this thread. On May 4 I went to take pictures of Kanzan on Holland between Marine Dr. and W 46. That was one of the late blooming spot last year. There are some wild cherry trees at the corner of 46 & Holland. Last year I thought they are late blooming Avium but this year I felt they might be not Avium but Emarginata. In March 16’s session, Bill Stephen, Vancouver Parks Board arborist, talked about wild cherries, he mentioned not only Avium but ‘Emarginata’ . I haven’t heard that name so I checked it in internet after I came back. I found Wikipedia site of prunus emarginata and it’s a native cherry to West coast of North America. Wikipedia of Avium said Avium was not native to American continent but it is called ‘wild Cherry’ and Emarginata as ‘bitter cherry’. Anyway I wanted to see the native cherry to Vancouver. The picture of Emarginata seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember the location of the tree. Now I see the wild cherries in the forest at 46th & Holland, I felt they are a little different from Avium. 1. It was a bit late to bloom as Avium. Most of Aviums started bloom after Akebono before Kanzan. But these trees seemed to blooming with Kanzan or after Kanzan. 2. Leaves are green even when it came out. In my Image, Avium started blooming without leaves. Then brownish green leaves appeared and turned to green. 3. Avium has branches which are very straight or rather weeping like Avium Plena. But both types have very strong image branches. But this tree have rather gentle image brunches. I found same kind of trees on Wallace, one is between 28 and 27, and the other is in the garden between 26 and 25. [edited by wcutler 20090718: In the summer, Mariko was told one of these is Montmorency sour cherry, and she thinks the other is the same. See posting #16.] Today(May 11) I found the trees at 46 & Holland are finishing now.
Re: Avium or Emarginata?! I'm very sorry I didn't read Wikipedia well (or not at all) .It says Emarginata is a small tree not (15M but 1.5M). So These trees at 46th and Holland can't be Emarginata. But anyone who know Emarginata in Vancouver or nearby please tell me the location.
Re: Avium or Emarginata?! Superficially similar trees encountered wild but not being clearly either P. avium or P. emarginata but displaying instead intermediate characteristics are liable to be the rather frequent hybrid between the two, P. x pugetensis. http://biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/imagecollection.php?Genus=Prunus&Species=%D7pugetensis The cultivated tree shown above has the appearance of P. cerasus.
Re: Avium or Emarginata?! Prunus cerasus is sour cherry. Here's a webpage that shows a blossom comparison between P. avium and P cerasus blossoms. As for Prunus emarginata, or bitter cherry, Gerald Straley's Trees of Vancouver book gives the following location info: It is very common in the edges of native forests in our area and may be seen throughout Stanley Park, Pacific Spirit Regional Park, and the University Endowment Lands. The large specimens include one north of the Stanley Park tennis courts and one west of the parking lot for the Children's Zoo, and a large one on the south side of 4th Ave between Larch St and Stephens St. He doesn't say how large these large specimens are. He does say "the tree is generally considered undesirable and is not often cultivated".
Re: Prunus x pugetensis - Single whites in clusters, very late season OK, wait a minute, Ron. Last year you suggested the tree I posted here was Prunus pugetensis, but in Mariko's posting asking about Prunus emarginata, the photo at the link you supplied for P. pugetensis doesn't look anything like the cherry I posted below. but the page on the same site for P. emarginata looks just like this tree to me. Now I want to know who all thought the tree pictured here isn't Prunus emarginata, and what about it would make it not that.
Re: Avium or Emarginata?! Thank you, Ron and Wendy. The picture of Prunus pugetensis is exactly the same as the trees at 46 & Holland. I didnâ't think of the hybrid between Avium and Emarginata. The location of them is the edge of Musqueam Park woods. And it is quite near to the Pacific Spirit Park. But I don't go to the Pacific Spirit Park now, because there was a murder last month. So I'll visit Stanley Park to see Prunus emarginata. So I still have a possibility to see Cerasus.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea I think this is the 4th and Larch tree Straley mentioned among the P. emarginata locations. It's next door to 2515 W 4th, on the property of a fairly new condo building, so it could be the case that he meant some tree that's not there now. This is right near the edge of the property, so if it's the one, we're lucky it was saved (for the purposes of this investigation anyway). Edited by wcutler 20230422 - I'm pretty sure the P. emarginata at this location is long gone. To me, it looks just like the one I posted at the start of this thread, except that one was more totally covered with little pompoms of blossoms. It was a nicer looking tree, so in that sense, I could believe it would be more likely to be the hybrid, but there are hardly any photos of P. pugetensis, and the ones on the U of W Burke Museum page don't indicate any little pompom arrangement.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea Mariko pointed out to me that the leaves (leaf edges, I think) on the trees at 46th and Holland are very different from the ones I posted that we think are Straley's P. emarginata. It looks to me, though, that on the website Ron linked to, the leaves on P. emarginata and P. x pugetensis look the same. Mariko, I think you're assuming your trees are P. x pugetensis but the logic doesn't work. Do the leaves on this image that's supposed to be Prunus cerasus look like yours? The leaves are supposed to be scalloped and toothed; I don't think they should look much different from P. avium leaves. Wikipedia gives as the difference between avium and cerasus: The [cerasus] tree is smaller than the wild cherry [avium] (growing to a height of 4–10 m), has twiggy branches, and its crimson-to-near-black cherries are borne upon shorter stalks.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea Plants of the hybrid I have recognized here had leaves in general appearance like those of bitter cherry but larger, appearing as though inflated by the sweet cherry parentage. It is intermediate in morphology, differing from P. avium in its pubescence, more slender leaves, smaller flowers, and peduncled inflorescences. It can be separated from P. emarginata by its broader leaves with coarser teeth, larger flowers with weakly notched petals, and occasional umbellate inflorescences. http://apt.allenpress.com/perlserv/...120/0024-9637(2007)54[74:ANHCPP]2.0.CO;2&ct=1
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea This posting is going to be similar to the story of the farmer who measured the weight of his pigs by balancing them to a pile of rocks and then carefully estimated the weight of the rocks. Mariko and I carefully guessed what tree was the emarginata and then we compared other trees to that. Our first tree we hope is the "one north of the Stanley Park tennis courts", so the P. emarginata. It's not right at the courts, but quite a bit north, actually north from the north of the two Tibetan paperbark cherries; or from Haro and Lagoon Drive, along the path leading south before you come to where the pedestrian and bike paths join. Note the very fuzzy leaves, stems and calyxes, if that means anything. Here is a young tree a bit south and on the other side of the paved path (Mariko can correct my locations). It looked similar to us at the time, but I wonder now if the leaves are different on the margins (third photo is comparison of the two, the tree above on the left). This is what I'm calling Tree1, the first one I posted last year, so the first tree in this thread. That's its trunk going across that second photo. It's coming back to me now. The problem with calling it emarginata was that the term "emarginata" is supposed to mean that the leaf edges are scalloped and toothed and this tree's leaf edges are not scalloped at all. Again, we thought they looked pretty similar at the time, but in the photos, the examples on the left show leaves that are scalloped (from the emarginata above) but the ones on the right (from Tree1) are not. BUT, the ones that are not emarginate are not broader, as Ron said pugetensis leaves are supposed to be. So it's something else?
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea I meant to comment on the tree at 4th and Larch. It's what I thought was one of the other emarginata trees mentioned by Straley, but its leaves look more like the one I'm calling Tree1 - neither one has emarginate edges.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea Jill Taylor, steward of the Stanley Park Ecology Society Native Plant Demonstration Garden, has sent me a photo of the tree they planted in 2003 in the Demonstration Garden as P. emarginata, bitter cherry. That came about because I was totally bemused to find that what I thought looked just like emarginata only larger in every way, she said is really a Pacific crab apple. Will I ever get the hang of this? Anyway, here's Jill's photo from last year when the bitter cherry was in bloom. This tree has entirely finished blooming this year (unlike all the other trees I'm calling emarginata just a block away, that weren't entirely in bloom yesterday). Here are a few more photos of the Demonstration Garden tree. The two single leaf photos are from the same tree, but they look as different as what I thought might be a difference in the previous photos.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea There are 3 P. emarginatas at east side of Central Park.( on Patterson Ave.) (See Burnaby) They didn't look like cherries from far and most of the bark was covered by moss, so it was very difficult to recognise them without seeing P.emarginata just the day before.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea On June 24, I went to check cherries of Pugetensis on 46th near Holland. But I couldn't see many cherries on the tree. Finally I found just one green cherry. It wasn't mature. On July 10, I had a chance to drive on Wallace and found the tree on Wallace near King Edward was very different from the one on 46th. I happened to meet the owner of the house and he told me it was a Sour cherry, Montmorency. Usually it has much better harvest and he gave cherries to neighbours. But this year it has rather poor harvest. When it bloomed it looked very similar to the tree on 46th but now not only cherries but leaves were very different from the one on 46th. This tree has usual cherry leaves but 46th one has thicker and harder leaves than usual cherries. I went to check the small tree near 26th. It’s still a very small cherry but it had a quite nice harvest. This also must be Montmorency. I went to check the cherry on 46th, too. But it hadn’t changed and was still small and green.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea Adding to the confusing about emarginata and pugetensis is that Wikipedia says there are two varieties of emarginata: These trees in Queen Elizabeth Park must be the var. mollis, as they're very fuzzy.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea The emarginata or x pugetensis are in bloom now (particularly see postings #11, 12 and 14). I don't notice any weak notches in the blossoms, so maybe emarginata . I didn't notice any pubescence on these. The leaves look different on all three, though yesterday seeing them, I thought they all looked the same.[Edited 2011jun02 by wcutler: I no longer think shown to this point are pugetensis] This practically horizontal tree right near the 'Shirofugen' at the Japanese Memorial in Stanley Park was posted previously. From the path from the 'Shirofugen' grove to Lumberman's arch, to the left, are a few smaller and taller trees. This one's leaves seem quite a bit wider than on the others. This one behind the Sorbus is quite tall and I could not get close to the flowers.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea The Burke Museum Digital Herbarium photos are quite representative of the hybrid. Otherwise, it is in flower here now: anyone wanting to be shown examples of it in person should come down.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea Ha! Maybe I will. I think the second group possibly shows x pugetensis. Some of the blossoms are notched; on the Burke Museum photos, more are notched, but there are some that are not. I added a third photo that shows the corymb structure and pubescence.
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea I believe these are the first photos of Prunus x pugetensis posted in this thread. It's actually Ron B who scouted out the tree on private property (visible a few blocks away from the main road) on Camano Island (I think, though it may have been Stanwood), WA, and and he led me to it to photograph it. It was definitely past blooming, but there were a few flowers remaining. The leaves are much more like avium leaves than the ones posted earlier in this thread, but the flowers are not in umbels. Ron also pointed out this group of P. emarginata, now I think on the south side of the main drag outside Stanwood, though when I named the photos I thought they were on Camano. I think everything that I posted earlier is P. emarginata of one type or another, and I think that's the case for everything else called pugetensis earlier. [Edited by wcutler 2011jun3: Ron B doesn't think I'm right about this being the first - see the next posting]
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea Definite Puget cherry in the 46th & Holland photos. Characteristic flowers plus same large downy leaves as we saw on Camano (look at the 46th & Holland close-up shot).
Re: Prunus emarginata, pugetensis, cerasus - Single whites in clusters, very late sea Great, thanks Ron. I missed Mariko's comments about the leaf edges.