Sour Cherry or Pie Cherry Tree
The Sour, Pie Cherry (Prunus Cerasus, Linn.), which often escapes from old gardens and spreads by suckers into roadside thickets, is a European immigrant. It is believed to be the parent of our cultivated sour cherries. It is a low-headed, spreading tree with no central "leader" among its branches, with grey bark, and stiff, grey-green, ovate leaves, and white flowers in scaly side clusters opening before the leaves are fully out. The cherries are soft, small and red.
Two groups of these sour cherries are recognised in cultivation: (1) The early, light-red varieties with uncoloured juice, of which the Early Richmond is a familiar type; and (2) the late, dark-red varieties with coloured juice, of which the English Morello is a well-known example.