Prunus serotinaEhrh.

black cherry

WFO wfo-0000995988 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Prunus serotina, photographed by Dilrukshan Priyantha Wijesinghe
fig. a Dilrukshan Priyantha Wijesinghe, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-06 / obs. 204154138
Prunus serotina, photographed by aga_l_
fig. b aga_l_, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203304631
Prunus serotina, photographed by Igor Balashov
fig. c Igor Balashov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203546922
Prunus serotina, photographed by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas
fig. d Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204165974
Prunus serotina, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. e Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204013996
Prunus serotina, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. f Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202650068
Prunus serotina, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. g Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202657609
Prunus serotina, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. h Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202654420

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 3,187 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 3,187 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 85 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 asplenifolia (G.Kirchn.) K.Koch
  • Cerasus capollin DC. ex Ser.
  • Cerasus capuli (Cav.) Ser.
  • Cerasus longifolius Nutt.
  • Cerasus longifolius Nutt. ex Torr. & A.Gray
  • Cerasus salicifolia (Kunth) Ser.
  • Cerasus serotina (Ehrh.) Poit. & Turpin
  • Cerasus serotina (Ehrh.) Loisel.
  • Cerasus serotina var. asplenifolia G.Kirchn.
  • Cerasus serotina var. cartilaginea Lehm. ex G.Kirchn.
  • Cerasus serotina var. montana Small
  • Cerasus serotina var. retusa Ser.
  • Lauro-cerasus salicifolia (Kunth) M.Roem.
  • Padus alabamensis (C.Mohr) Small
  • Padus australis (Beadle) Small
  • Padus capollin (DC. ex Ser.) C.K.Schneid.
  • Padus capollin (Ser.) M.Roem.
  • Padus capuli (Cav.) Moldenke
  • Padus capulinos Hamelin
  • Padus cartilaginea (Lehm.) M.Roem.
  • Padus cuthbertii (Small) Small
  • Padus eximia (Small) Small
  • Padus hirsuta (Elliot) M.Roem.
  • Padus retusa (Ser. ex DC.) M.Roem.

and 61 more.

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.

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