Chinese Sour Cherry

Trees 2–8 m tall. Bark grayish white to reddish brown. Branchlets grayish brown; young branchlets green, glabrous or pilose. Winter buds ovoid to long elliptic, glabrous or subglabrous. Stipules lanceolate to narrowly lorate, soon caducous, margin gland-tipped fimbriate. Petiole 0.5–1.5 cm, glabrous or pilose, apex with 1–3 large nectaries; leaf blade ovate, oblong-ovate, or long elliptic, 5–12 × 3–6 cm, abaxially pale green and pilose along and between veins, adaxially dark green and subglabrous, base rounded, margin acutely biserrate or incised serrate, teeth with a minute apical gland; secondary veins 9–11 on either side of midvein. Inflorescences corymbose or subumbellate, 3–7-flowered; involucral bracts brown, obovate-elliptic, ca. 5 × 3 mm, margin glandular serrate. Flowers opening before leaves. Pedicel 0.8–1.9 cm, pilose. Hypanthium campanulate, 3–6 × 2–3 mm, outside pilose. Sepals triangular-ovate to ovate-oblong, 1/2 or more as long as hypanthium, margin entire, apex acute to obtuse. Petals white, ovate to long elliptic, apically emarginate or 2-lobed. Stamens 30–35(–50 in cultivated varieties). Style nearly as long as stamens, glabrous. Drupe red, subglobose, 0.9–1.3 cm in diam.; endocarp ± sculptured. Fl. Mar–Apr, fr. May–Jun.

Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.

Sunny mountain slopes, sides of ravines, usually cultivated; 300--1200 m.

Prunus pseudocerasus Lindley, Trans. Hort. Soc. London 6: 90. 1826; Cerasus scopulorum (Koehne) T. T. Yü & L. C. Li; Prunus involucrata Koehne; P. pauciflora Bunge; P. scopulorum Koehne.