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Prunus mahaleb
Also called Mahaleb Cherry, St. Lucie Cherry, Perfumed Cherry, Rock Cherry, St. Lucie's Cherry, Gandhi Cherry, Saint Lucie Cherry
St Lucie cherry is a deciduous tree or large shrub, 2 to 10 m tall, grown mainly as a fragrant ornamental and as a rootstock for grafting cherries. It is hardy and adaptable, and tolerates dry, open sites.
Prunus mahaleb, the St Lucie cherry or mahaleb cherry, is a species of cherry, native to central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, southwest Asia, and parts of central Asia. The tree is cultivated for a spice obtained from the seeds inside the cherry stones. The seeds have a fragrant scent and have a taste comparable to bitter almonds with cherry notes.
Away from its native range, the species is grown as an ornamental tree for its strongly fragrant flowers, throughout temperate regions of the world. A number of cultivars have been selected for their ornamental value, including 'Albomarginata', with variegated foliage, 'Bommii', a dwarf with strongly pendulous branches, 'Globosa', a compact dwarf clone, 'Pendula', with drooping branching, and 'Xanthocarpa' with yellow fruit. It has also been used as a rootstock for grafting other cherries on.
Prunus mahaleb occurs in thickets and open woodland on dry slopes; in central Europe at altitudes up to 1,700 m (5,600 ft), and in highlands at 1,200–2,000 m in southern Europe. It has become naturalised in some temperate areas, including Europe north of its native range (north to Great Britain and Sweden), and locally in Australia and the United States. mahaleb cherry
The plant is also cultivated for mahleb, a spice obtained from the seeds inside the cherry stones. It is fragrant and has the taste of bitter almonds. It is used in small quantities to sharpen sweet foods, such as the Turkish sweet-bread çörek (chorak), the Greek sweet-bread tsoureki or the Armenian sweet-bread chorak. The chemical constituents are still uncertain, but the spice is prepared from the seeds, either by grinding and powdering the seed kernels, or in oil extracted from the seeds.
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Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Prunus mahaleb by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
