Chinese sour cherry is a small, bushy ornamental tree from China, grown for its early spring pink blossoms and tart edible cherries. It is a species, not a genus, and is valued for flowering before its leaves appear.
Family
Rosaceae (Rose family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water regularly while young, then moderately; avoid waterlogged soil.
Soil
Well-drained loam; tolerates a range of soil types.
Temperature
Hardy to around -20 °C; protect young trees from late frost.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Toxic to cats and dogs (ASPCA).
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
China
Climate
temperate
About
Prunus pseudocerasus or Prunus pseudo-cerasus, the Chinese sour cherry or just Chinese cherry, is a species of cherry native to China. It is used worldwide as an ornamental for its early spring cherry blossoms. The fruit of some cultivars is edible.
Uses
In China it has been cultivated for its edible (if tart) fruit for around 2000 years. In Japan it is favored as an ornamental tree for its tendency to bloom, flowers before leaves, earlier than the Japanese cherry Prunus serrulata. A tetraploid with 2n=32 chromosomes, it is used as rootstock for other flowering cherries. It is the parent of a number of hybrid cultivars. It is resistant to the fungal disease cherry leaf spot. P. pseudocerasus is near extinction in the wild due to anthropogenic activities.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Prunus pseudocerasus 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.