Cirerer (Catalan) | Cereixeira (Galician) | Cerejeira (Portugese) | Cerezo (Spanish) | Merisier (French)
Prunus is actually the Roman name for the plum tree and later also given to all species of stone fruit; aviumcomes from avis, meaning ´birds´ alluding to the largest group of animals that consume its fruit.
The fruit tree has, since ancient times, been highly valued in the Mediterranean basin; both the Greeks and Romans extending it widely. Today it is cultivated in a large part of temperate regions of the world.
A tall and slim tree, the wild cherry can reach a natural height of 30 m, a classical fruit tree in the grounds of farmhouses where its height is restricted in order to facilitate the easy collecting of the cherries.
Without thorns, its bark is smooth and grey amongst the younger specimens and distinctly known for its horizontal stripping that sometimes peel off in transversal papyrus-like strips.
The leaves are deciduous, simple, alternate (best seen in the middle branches, leaves at its two ends appearing closer together), serrated, ending in a fine point and with a long stem with two reddish or blackish glands close to the leaf blade.
In autumn, they change from green to ochre, orange and red, lending the tree a distinct character that highlights it from other species in the forest canopy.
The flowers are white, with five petals, hermaphrodites and grouped in corymbs (clusters), cross-fertilized by insects such as bees. The flowering takes place in the months of April/May, before the arrival of the first leaves.
The fruit, the cherries, develop after two months, and of the drupe variety. The cherry has a late blossoming, allowing its survival through late spring frosts, the ones that the majority of fruit trees are sensitive to, especially those that flower early.
Cherry seeds are distributed by birds that feed off the fruit, although, its an inefficient system given the number of difficulties encountered and the enemies to defeat: parasitic insects in the seeds, destruction of the seedlings by mammals (particularly deer and rabbits), sufficient light needed for their development and so on.
The cherry lives in humid forests forming part of the companion species of beech, oak, chestnut, and birch groves. The substrate is irrelevant for the cherry, provided that the soil is well developed. They grow anywhere from sea level to a height of 1500 m approximately.
In Basque, the resin from the cherry tree is called gerezi-negar meaning weeping cherry tree. Negarrez dagoen gereziondoa (the cherry tree that cries) describes a cherry tree that is suffering from Gummosis, releasing sap or resin (produced by physiological causes or as a consequence of insect attack) which is one of its most frequent diseases.
Its wood alongside walnut, is probably the most valued by cabinetmakers, being hard, fine and reddish in colour.
