Cherries

Along with Pomegranates, Prunus avium and the rest of the cherry family have a quite narrow relation to the rest of the plant DNA bank. There is actually no co-relative to the Pomegranate,which stands alone.

Cherry has a limited genetic family. Above, the flowers of Prunus avium ...

One of the most interesting things I found out about Prunus avium is that it is called Wild Cherry but that it has leaves, flowers and fruit which are actually cherry shapes, whereas the true Wild Cherry has Spring flowers which look more like a Black Walnut flower- about 100 small white florets on short bracts surrounding the three inch stem of blooms.
The true Wild Cherry (our area is rife with them on the sedgeways) is also called Black Choke Cherry, Atlantic Ninebark, Rum Cherry, Cerasus Nigra and C. sylvestris.
Its' tiny fruit are oval and more like a small plum to look at.
At one point I was told that these little trees were actully Umeboshi plums- the true source of Chinese Plum sauce. I have tried the real Umeboshi paste when I lived close to Chinatown in Toronto in my youth, and the taste quite resembles the bitter, flat taste of the Choke Cherry, though sugared and perhaps simmered with peaches.
The link above is to an image bank source.Very valuable.
Another image source you might explore is The Vascular Plant Image Gallery at the Texas A & M University.

When I was researching the Wild Cherry I found a huge list of valuable medicines which come from Cerasus nigra. Among many other themes, it is an analgesic, anodyne, blood cleanser, emetic, expectorant, febrifuge, vermifuge, good for womens' ailments, cancer, burns and measles.In other words the wise survivor-farmer should not be without one of these lovely trees. I have only seen one of them more than nine feet high, and its gorgeous bloom in the Spring is really impressive, as an 18 foot tree. Bear in mind, when you are planning herbal experiments of your own

I have had an interesting experience with the true wild cherry. I found what looked to be rose leaves poking out of the gravel path in my former garden. I dug them out and found that they stemmed from a Nectarine pit. Thinking with excitement that I would grow a Nectarine in my back yard, I raised it with love in my backyard until it was six feet high, or until I vacated my rental.
The leaves turned to slightly papery, tough leaves which resembled pear leaves. The blossoms finally came in the fourth year to resemble the wild cherry tassel of white florets, and they did, indeed, leave small, glossy plum-shaped fruit. I was not disappointed, but I have always wondered how in hell the Wild Cherry came out of the Nectarine pit?

(I have included, in a cherry bark recipe link) the warning that too many leaves or fruit are harmful in quantity- the leaves and fruit contain hydrogen cyanide which when overdosed can cause respiratory failure or even death.
Prunus avium does not show any contra-indications in two herb books, by comparison, but you know what happens to the digestion when you eat a pound of cherries.
Neither would you swig back a bottle of cough syrup as the expectorant produced from cherry bark is potent enough from a tablespoon.

Cherries. I just buy as many as I can afford when the markets present their exquisite, slightly almond-tasting glossy fruits, tumbled as they are with their stems still attached so that one may dangle one or two above the lovers eager lips, perhaps under a warm sky sprinkled with stars.
What I did not know when I purchased my coveted award of expensive summer cherries is that sweet cherries inhibit the buildup of  LDL (Low-Density Lipoprotein)
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