Appearance
''Prunus emarginata'' is a deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 1–15 metres tall with a slender oval trunk with smooth gray to reddish-brown bark with horizontal lenticels. The leaves are 2–8 centimetres long, thin, oval-shaped, and yellowish-green with unevenly-sized teeth on either side. The flowers are small, 10–15 mm diameter, with five white petals and numerous hairlike stamens; they are almond-scented, and produced in clusters in spring, and are pollinated by insects. The fruit is a juicy red or purple cherry 7–14 mm diameter, which, as the plant's English name suggests, are bitter. As well as reproducing by seed, it also sends out underground stems which then sprout above the surface to create a thicket.There are two varieties:
⤷ ''Prunus emarginata'' var. ''emarginata''. Usually shrubby; young shoots and leaves hairless or only thinly hairy. Most of the species' range.
⤷ ''Prunus emarginata'' var. ''mollis'' Brew. A larger tree; young shoots and leaves downy. Oregon north to British Columbia, mainly coastal.
Uses
The cherries are not very palatable and have been known to cause illness in humans, but animals, especially birds, forage on them.References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
