Prunus padus L.
Cerasus padus (L.) DC., Padus avium Mill.
Eng.: Bird cherry, hackberry, hagberry, mayday tree. Spa.: Cerezo de racimos, cerezo aliso. Fre.: Cerisier à grappes, merisier à grappes, bois-puant, putier, putiet, putet, pétafouère.
Shrub or small tree, deciduous, hermaphrodite, 2-6(10) m in height, irregular in shape, with generally well defined trunk, with extended or ascending branches. Bark of trunk smooth, dark brown and with lenticels. Branches very open, branchlets with unpleasant smell, brown or dark brown, with whitish lenticels. Leaves (4)5-10(11) × (2.5)3-5.5(6) cm, ovate-elliptic, elliptic or obovate, sometimes somewhat cordiform at the base, narrowing into a tip, margin finely serrulate, sometimes with glands on the teeth, matt green and glabrous on the upper side, paler on the underside; petiole short. Flowers 15-40, smelly, glabrous, in multifloral racemes of up to 15 cm long, usually pendant, with small leaves at the base. Calyx with 5 erect sepals, 1-2 mm, broadly triangular or ovate, obtuse or more rarely subacute, glandular-ciliate. Corolla with 5 white petals 6-9 mm, free. Fruit subglobose, 7-8 mm in diameter, red at first and then bright black, bitter to taste, with narrow mesocarp, endocarp or stone ovoid or subglobose, foveolate-reticulate, sulcate.
Flowering:
May to July.
Fruiting:
August to September.
Habitat:
Shrubby habitats, edges and clearings in humid forests, often in gullies and near watercourses, humid and shady ravines, rocky slopes between 1,900 and 2,200 m in altitude.
Distribution:
Almost throughout all of Europe (although rare in the Mediterranean region). In North Africa it is only present in the Acif Sufulud (NE Middle Atlas).
Observations:
To conclude with the genus Prunus, it is worth mentioning at least a number of cultivated or naturalised species found across the territory, such as cherries P. cerasus L.and P. serotina Ehrh., the plum P. cerasifera Ehrh., the apricot P. armeniaca L. and the peach P. persica (L.) Batsch.
Conservation status:
Rare but widely distributed species, does not seem threatened, although in North Africa it is extremely rare. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species it is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level (Rhodes & Maxted, 2016).