A very small window of free time has appeared and I better grab it to tell you about our soon-to-be-done-blooming, Black Cherry trees. Even without the blossoms though, this tree isn’t that hard to identify. It has those dot-dash lines along its bark, as the birches do, which they use for gas exchange and is beleaguered by Black Knot Fungus, which also makes it easy to spot. Black Knot Fungus causes those misshapen swellings you may have seen along the trunk or branches of this tree. Some people think they are the world’s biggest insect galls but, they are actually caused by a fungus.
But lets hope there is still time to spot it by its prolific white flowers and not a fungus! If the flowers are gone in your part of the world, you can also be looking for the cluster of drooping cherries that will be the result of pollinated flowers. They are favored by so many animals, and you could make jam out of them if you were so inclined. The fruit is really tart, too tart for our taste and if you chose to eat them, you would need to be careful not to swallow the pit, because, here is the Agatha Christie part of this tree, it is loaded with cyanide! If you scratch the bark on a twig it will smell like cheap cigars and it is the cyanide compound that makes it smell that way. Charming eh?
The twigs are not to be chewed on-cyanide. The pits not to be swallowed-cyanide and even the leaves, when they are dying and wilted- loads of cyanide. For that matter, a hazard for poor Bessie in the field is that a broken branch, with all those withered leaves look tempting to a cow, but can actually kill it if it eats them. Eeks. Who knew? Such a lovely tree, but better to look at than dine on. And yet, the flesh of the cherry itself, though tart, is fine to eat and is used to make jams and jellies, in ice cream and a liqueur. It was also used to flavor that cherry flavored cough syrup you had to choke down as a child. Which reminds me, a closely related cherry is Choke Cherry, which gets its name from the fact that eating the bitter cherries might make you choke.
Back to some positives about the tree. The Black Cherry is the tallest of cherries growing from 50-80 ft and if Black Knot doesn’t get it, or storms break off its branches, it can live to be 250 years old. It is another one of the “first in” kind of trees, growing in abandoned fields, or areas that have had fire damage. Like the locust tree, it improves the soil it is in, so is a boon to those plants growing around it. It is the wood of this tree that is the lovely cherry wood of cabinets and violins etc. So what’s a little poison in light of all the good things it contributes?
If you happen to enjoy finding scats of wild animals, as I do (because it lets me know wild animals are about, always a good thing), then summer is the time to see how many different animals love these cherries, poison pits and all. I have seen scat from raccoons, opossum, fox and coyote loaded with pits in July and August. Every fruit eating bird loves them and there is nothing like travelling through a digestive tract to make a seed ready to grow. Germination is aided by such a trip in Cherries, Hollies, Pokeweeds etc.
If you are looking for something to entertain your guests with this Memorial Day weekend, go scratch the bark of a nearby cherry, smell the stale cigar, and share with them all you now know about this tree and let them wonder how you got so smart. “Ah yes, dabbling in forestry in my free time.” I’ll never tell. Enjoy!
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