Anyone recognize this Prunus? The leaves are gland-tipped. I was thinking possibly avium but would like to get some more feedback. Thanks!
I'm not sure what the plant is, but it is probably not a Prunus. The closeup highlighting a bud in the leaf axil also shows that there are no glands on the leaf stem. Someone else in this forum may recognize the specimen.
If you do web searches for "prunus key" and the like more than one generated by eastern US sources comes up, your tree is probably covered by those. Of course, you would be able to zero in on it much more readily if flowers or at least fruits were present.
The leaf margins are consistent with Prunus avium, and I'm not aware of other Prunus with those uneven margins, but I have no idea what else would be in the running.
I bought some Morello (sour) cherries at a corner grocery store today, Prunus cerasus. I looked up the leaves, and they look pretty similar to yours too, maybe even more than P. avium. The leaves look similarly dull on top and the margins are a little finer than on avium. Here's the google search page. Here's a page with tree photo, flower and leaf photos from a wild tree. There are several cultivars of P. cerasus.
Wendy, I think that you're right - that P. cerasus is a better match than P. avium. I was looking at some keys, and the length of petiole, shape of leaf teeth, and position of glands below the leaf seem to fit P. cerasus. P. cerasus tends to have a shorter petiole than avium. And on cerasus one side of each leaf tooth is much longer than the other side, so that the gland is close to the sinus in the leaf (whereas on avium one side of the leaf tooth is only slightly longer than the other side). Also, cerasus has glands that tend to be at the base of the leaf blade (not so much on the petiole) whereas avium has glands that tend to be distinctly on the petiole. I also saw that the undersides of the mature leaves of avium tend to have at least some hairs, whereas the undersides of the mature leaves of cerasus tend to be hairless. thanks!
Note that name Morello refers to a dark type of sour cherry and is not a common name for the entire species.
I did say there were several cultivars of P. cerasus. The ones I bought were dark red inside (and without stems, which I think applies to all P. cerasus when ripe, and were sticky). I made enough jam to fill one espresso cup. I've always preferred eating the lighter ones (that I assume are Montmorency) to these, but this jam (or preserves, I guess, as the whole fruits were in it) was wonderful. I just ate it with a spoon, made it last three days. We seem pretty sure this is a cherry - I'm going to move the thread to Fruit Trees.