Black Cherry (Prunus serotina Ehrh.)
The genus Prunus comprises approximately 400 species of trees and shrubs. Many species and cultivars are grown for their edible fruits, while others are planted for their ornamental value. Approximately 25 species are native to the United States, and of t
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Black Cherry (Prunus serotina Ehrh.)
CA. MAYNARD" K. KAVANAGH2 , H. FUERNKRANZ3 , and A.P. DREW'
1 Introduction The genus Prunus comprises approximately 400 species of trees and shrubs. Many species and cultivars are grown for their edible fruits, while others are planted for their ornamental value. Approximately 25 species are native to the United States, and of these 18 reach tree size. Black cherry (Prunus serotina Ehrh.) is the only member ofthis genus with commercial importance as a timber species in the United States (Fowells 1965). Black cherry is monoecious, producing insect-pollinated perfect flowers in clusters. The fruit is a one-seeded drupe with a stony endocarp. Many species of Prunus are notable for early flowering, often before or simultaneously with leaf emergence. Black cherry flowers well after vegetative bud break but before leaves reach full size. Floral development is early enough, however, to be subject to damage by late spring frosts in many parts of the black cherry range. There appear to be strong incompatibility barriers to self-pollination (Stairs and Hauck 1968; Forbes 1973). The base chromosome number for the genus is x = 8 and there are many diploid and tetraploid species (Darlington 1928). Black cherry has a chromosome number of 2n = 32, indicating that it is a tetraploid (Stairs and Hauck 1968). However, chromosomes pair as bivalents during meiosis, indicating that the polyploidy is of ancient origin. Black cherry is a high-value hardwood timber species that ranks close in value with black walnut (Juglan.~ nigra L.) and red oak (Quercus rubra L.) (Anon. 1986, 1988; Peterson 1988). The dense straight-grained, often highly figured wood is prized for cabinetry, furniture, and veneer (Panshin and DeZeeuw 1970). In 1977, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were an estimated 3.8 billion cu bic feet of black cherry tim ber growing in the eastern United States and the annual harvest was more than SO million cubic feet (US Forest Service 1982). The botanical range of black cherry is quite large, covering most of the eastern United States and the southern part of Canada and extending south into Mexico and Guatemala. Throughout this region, black cherry occurs as an early-successional species after logging, fire, or other site disturbance, in hedgerows in agricultural Faculty of Forestry, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, USA Department of Forest Sciences, Oregon State University Corvallis, OR, USA 'Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, SUNY Health Sciences Center, Syracuse, NY, USA. 1
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Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, Vol. 16 Trees III (ed. by Y.P.S. Bajaj) I£) Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1991
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c.A. Maynard et al.
areas, and as a component of the mature forest on mesic upland and cove sites. Because of its common occurrence in open fields and he
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