cerasiformis – shaped like a cherry, referring to the fruit

Leaves:

• alternate
• simple
• entire
• leaves narrowly oblong-lanceolate to oblanceolate
• light greenish-yellow
• young leaves smell like cucumber (when crushed)

Flowers:

• dioecious, but sometimes bisexual flowers on plant
• pendulous inflorescence (raceme)
• 5 sepals & petals
• male flowers – 15 stamens in 3 whorls
• female flowers – 5 carpels & styles
• small greenish white

Fruit:

• thin-fleshed drupe
• bitter but edible
• ripens to black (various colors as it ripens from yellow to red-purple to purple-black)

Other characteristics:

• shrub to small tree, to 9 ft
• deciduous
• bark is purplish brown and bitter
• no thorns
• stems have chambered pith
• one of the earliest bloomers in spring, flowers produced before leaves

Ecology & Adaptations:

• dry to moist open woods, streambanks, at low elevations
• in WA, west of the Cascades and along the Columbia River Gorge
• common understory species, adapted through timing
  • leaves emerge early, absorbing sunlight before overstory trees produce leaves that shade
• pollination – blooms in late winter/early spring, producing nectar that attracts hummingbirds, moths, butterflies, native bees, and other pollinators
• seed dispersal – animals (e.g., birds, squirrels, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, skunk, deer, bear) eat the fruit and disperse seeds
• fruit’s stone, or pit, contains cyanoglucosides (bitter, toxic compounds) as an herbivory defense
• adapted to low O₂ soils – conspicuous orange lenticels in stems provide access to O₂ even if roots are in saturated soils
• reproduce vegetatively by root suckering (new shoots produced from roots)