Prunus avium L.
Cerasus avium (L.) Moench
Eng.: Wild cherry. Spa.: Cerezo silvestre, guindo silvestre. Fre.: Merisier, cerisier sauvage. Ara.: Qiracya, kirz, kerz, karz, el-berry, bu sufa, habb el meluk. Tam.: Arddlim, arddrim.
Tree, deciduous, hermaphrodite, up to 15(30) m in height, with ovoid or pyramidal shape. Trunk well defined, straight, slightly tortuous, with greyish-silver bark, almost smooth; in older specimens, the trunk can be blackish (at least at the base), with deep longitudinal cracks. Branches greyish, bark smooth with superficial transverse cracks, peeling into thin laminas. Young branchlets glabrous, greenish or reddish-brown. Leaves (6-15 × 3-8 cm), alternate, obovate-lanceolate or obovate-oblong, acute, acuminate, slightly attenuated or rounded at the base, crenate-serrate margin, glabrous and intense green on the upper side and glabrescent and slightly lighter and duller on the underside. Petiole long, 1.5-5 cm, glabrous or with some hairs, with 2 small reddish glands near the union with the leaf. Inflorescence umbelliform, sessile, composed of 2-6 flowers, each 2-3 cm in diameter, with long peduncle 1.5-5 (6) cm, glabrous. Calyx with 5 greenish sepals, oval-oblong, curved backwards, glabrous. Corolla with 5 petals 6-12 mm, white or white-pinkish, oval-orbicular, ± emarginate, glabrous. Stamens numerous (about 30), with white-pinkish filaments and yellow anthers. Fruit a subglobose drupe (9-18 cm in diameter), red-blackish, smooth, shiny and glabrous. Seed 1, ovoid and almost smooth.
Flowering:
March to April.
Fruiting:
June to August.
Habitat:
Forests and hedges on various terrains but generally siliceous. In dry to humid bioclimate, sometimes in semiarid bioclimate but then along rivers and streams or sheltered microclimates, on thermomediterranean to supramediterranean floors. Cultivated forms are widespread throughout the world.
Distribution:
Europe, North Africa and western Asia. In North Africa, although it always appears in isolated stands —as is it the case in the other species of the genus in the region—, it can become locally abundant in some well preserved cedar and oak forests. Morocco (central-western Rif, Jebel Tazekka and central Middle Atlas), Algeria (central-eastern Tellian Atlas) and Tunisia (forests in Krumiria).
Conservation status:
Common and widely distributed species. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In Tunisia it is included in its List of native species that are rare and threatened with extinction (Order of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources 19-July-2006).