Prunus americanaMarshall

American PlumAmerican Red PlumAmerican plumGoose Plum

WFO wfo-0001017074 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Prunus americana, photographed by Étienne Léveillé-Bourret
fig. a Étienne Léveillé-Bourret, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-29 / obs. 204023049
Prunus americana, photographed by Hill Craddock
fig. b Hill Craddock, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196375299
Prunus americana, photographed by Jared Shorma
fig. c Jared Shorma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197962201
Prunus americana, photographed by Shalana Gray
fig. d Shalana Gray, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196059247
Prunus americana, photographed by Jared Shorma
fig. e Jared Shorma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197960486
Prunus americana, photographed by Shalana Gray
fig. f Shalana Gray, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191678449
Prunus americana, photographed by Craig Martin
fig. g Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 190975992
Prunus americana, photographed by Alaina Krakowiak
fig. h Alaina Krakowiak, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189742384

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 49 botanical countries

Regions where Prunus americana is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Québec, Rhode I., Saskatchewan, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming AlabamaArkansasColoradoConnecticutFloridaGeorgiaIdahoIllinoisIndianaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineManitobaMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOntarioOregonPennsylvaniaQuébecSaskatchewanSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming DelawareDistrict of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Prunus americana, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Colorado COL
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Idaho IDA
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New Mexico NWM
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Oregon ORE
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
Saskatchewan SAS
South Carolina SCA
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Utah UTA
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
Washington WAS
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
Wyoming WYO

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 1,248 in flower of 1,736 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Prunus americana observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 1,248 of 1,736 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,018 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -14.0 °C -7.8 °C -3.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.7 °C 28.2 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 425 mm 522 mm 1,219 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 38 mm 61 mm 251 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,018 research-grade observations of Prunus americana that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 14 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cerasus americana Hook. & Arn.
  • Cerasus canadensis Loisel.
  • Cerasus hyemalis (Michx.) Ser.
  • Padus canadensis M.Roem.
  • Prunus acinaria Desf.
  • Prunus acuminata K.Koch
  • Prunus americana f. rosea (Peck) House
  • Prunus americana subvar. acuminata Asch. & Graebn.
  • Prunus americana var. floridana Sarg.
  • Prunus americana var. rosea Peck
  • Prunus coccinea Raf.
  • Prunus domestica var. americana (Marshall) Castigl.
  • Prunus hyemalis Michx.
  • Prunus mississipi Marshall

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.