Black Cherry Tree Identification: Bark, Leaves, Fruit

Black cherry is identified by its bark, the rusty hairs under the leaf, its long chains of flowers or fruit, and the smell of a scratched twig.

• Bark: Three Rivers Parks describes young trees as light gray and smooth with distinct horizontal lenticels, and older trees as darker and scaly, with scales whose edges turn upward.
• Leaves: the USDA NRCS plant guide gives alternate, simple leaves 5 to 15 cm long and 2.5 to 5 cm wide, finely toothed, commonly with reddish hairs along the midrib beneath, near the base. Turn a leaf over and look where the midrib meets the stalk.
• Flowers and fruit: white five-petaled flowers in a long cylindrical cluster (raceme) 10 to 15 cm long at the end of new twigs, followed by fruits 8 to 10 mm across that ripen black (USDA NRCS). The species name serotina means "late," because it flowers later than other Prunus (Three Rivers Parks).
• Smell: Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens recommends snapping a twig or scraping bark and smelling for a distinctly pungent odor; Wikipedia calls it almond-like.

In winter, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens notes the buds have three or more scales overlapping like shingles.

• Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana): Wikipedia describes it as a suckering shrub or small tree usually 1 to 6 m tall, with leaves 2.5 to 10 cm that are smooth on both surfaces. It notes black cherry grows far taller, to 30 m, with larger, wholly dark green leaves with blunt teeth and darker fruit. No rusty hairs under the leaf is a quick sign of chokecherry.
• Wild cherry or sweet cherry (Prunus avium): in Britain and Europe, "wild cherry" means this tree, the main ancestor of cultivated cherries (Wikipedia). Its flowers come in clusters of two to six, not in a long chain, and its fruit is 1 to 2.5 cm, larger than black cherry's 8 to 10 mm.
• Common buckthorn: Three Rivers Parks notes young black cherry bark can be confused with this invasive shrub. Check the leaves: black cherry has the rusty midrib hairs and the long flower or fruit chains.

The USDA NRCS plant guide states that the leaves, twigs, bark and seeds produce a cyanogenic glycoside. Most livestock poisoning comes from eating wilted leaves, which contain more of the toxin than fresh leaves. Wikipedia explains the seeds release hydrogen cyanide when ground or crushed.

The same plant guide records that pitted fruits have been eaten raw and used in wine and jelly, and that the fruit has flavored rum and brandy. Three Rivers Parks describes the fruit as usually bitter. Before eating any wild fruit, have the tree confirmed by someone who knows it locally; never chew or crush the pits, leaves or twigs. If someone swallows them, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222. If livestock may have eaten wilted branches after a storm, call a veterinarian.

Benefits documented by the sources:

• Wildlife: the USDA NRCS lists fruit eaters including songbirds, game birds, red fox, black bear, raccoon, opossum, squirrels and rabbits. Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens says it hosts over 450 butterfly and moth species.
• Wood: the USDA NRCS calls it one of the most valued cabinet and furniture woods in North America.
• Fast growth: Three Rivers Parks gives two feet or more a year.

Drawbacks:

• Livestock risk from wilted leaves (USDA NRCS)
• Black knot, a fungal disease causing rough black swellings on twigs and trunk, and eastern tent caterpillar defoliation (USDA NRCS)
• Shallow roots and a tendency to wind throw, and thin bark easily damaged by fire (USDA NRCS)
• Seedlings everywhere: birds spread the seeds and seeds germinate over three years (USDA NRCS)

Black cherry is native across eastern North America, from Nova Scotia and Quebec to Minnesota and North Dakota, south to Florida and east Texas, with outlying populations in the Southwest and south to Guatemala (USDA NRCS). The same plant guide states it is known to be highly invasive in forests of Holland and other countries of Western Europe, and Wikipedia names Poland among the places it has spread. In its native range it is a normal part of the forest, though Three Rivers Parks notes it is projected to decline in Minnesota.

Research and drafting for this page used AI assistance. Every measurement, date and claim was then checked against the sources listed below, which were opened and read on 2026-09-25. Where two sources give different numbers, both are shown.

"Wild cherry" means different trees in different places. In North America it usually means one of three native cherries; in Britain and Europe it means Prunus avium. The quickest way to tell them apart is the flower or fruit cluster:

• Black cherry (Prunus serotina): white flowers in a long hanging chain 10 to 15 cm, black fruit 8 to 10 mm, rusty hairs under the leaf midrib (USDA NRCS, above). The largest native cherry, 60 to 80 feet (Tree Identifier).
• Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana): a large shrub or small tree 15 to 25 feet with dense cylindrical flower clusters (Tree Identifier) and leaves smooth on both sides.
• Pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica): a fast-growing pioneer with small, flat-topped clusters of 3 to 7 flowers (Tree Identifier); Wikipedia gives groups of five to seven flowers about 1 cm across, fruit only 4 to 8 mm, and leaves 4 to 11 cm long.
• Wild cherry (Prunus avium, Britain and Europe): flowers in clusters of two to six, deep red cherries (Woodland Trust).

All of them share the cherry-family mark of smooth bark with horizontal lenticels, pores that look like thin papery lines partway round the trunk (Tree Identifier).

The Woodland Trust gives these features for the native wild cherry of Britain:

• Size and age: up to 30 m tall, living up to 60 years
• Bark: shiny, deep reddish-brown with prominent cream-colored horizontal lenticels
• Leaves: oval, toothed, pointed, 6 to 15 cm; two red glands at the top of the leaf stalk are the most distinctive mark; orange and deep crimson in autumn
• Flowers: white, cup-shaped, five petals, 8 to 15 mm across, in April, hanging in clusters of two to six
• Fruit: round, hairless, deep red cherries
• Winter: oval buds in clusters on the twigs

Its look-alikes are sour cherry (longer fruit stalks), bird cherry and cherry plum. The spring flowers are an early source of nectar and pollen for bees, and birds, badgers and mice eat the fruit (Woodland Trust).

In North America the everyday question is black cherry against chokecherry. Chokecherry stays a large shrub or small tree, 15 to 25 feet (Tree Identifier), with leaves smooth on both surfaces and no rusty hairs under the midrib (Wikipedia, above); its flower clusters are dense and cylindrical. Black cherry grows into a tall forest tree, 60 to 80 feet (Tree Identifier), its older bark breaks into dark plates that curl outward, and its flower chains are longer and looser. Pin cherry is separated from both by its small flat-topped clusters and tiny 4 to 8 mm fruit (Wikipedia).

Garden and street cherries are often mistaken for wild ones. Tree Identifier's guide separates them by flower: Yoshino has five-petaled flowers, white to very pale pink, before the leaves fully emerge; Kwanzan has double flowers with 20 to 50 deep-pink petals; Okame has strongly pink single flowers on a compact tree. Sweet cherry grown for fruit gives large, firm cherries, and sour cherry stays 15 to 25 feet with tart fruit. Pear blossoms, which look similar in spring, smell faintly unpleasant, and serviceberry is another spring-flowering look-alike (Tree Identifier).

Are there poisonous cherry look-alikes? None of the sources we read names a specific poisonous tree that passes for a wild cherry. The documented risk is in the cherry trees themselves: the USDA NRCS states that black cherry leaves, twigs, bark and seeds contain a cyanogenic glycoside, and Wikipedia notes the seeds release hydrogen cyanide when crushed. Have any wild tree confirmed locally before eating its fruit, never chew or crush the pits, and call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 if pits or leaves are swallowed.