Cherry

Cherry (Prunus avium), also called sweet cherry or gean, is a deciduous tree of the rose family (Rosaceae), 5–15 m tall with smooth bark marked by rings and a broad crown. Leaves are ovate, serrate and alternate; the leaf stalk usually bears two small nectary glands. Flowers are white with five petals and open in early spring with or before the leaves; they are bisexual but mostly need cross-pollination by bees, so several cultivars are often interplanted. The fruit is a round drupe, red to dark red (some cultivars yellow), with a long stalk, sweet juicy flesh and a single hard stone. The species is native to Europe and West Asia (around the Caspian and Black Seas) and has been cultivated since Roman times; with peach, plum, pear and apple it forms the important temperate-fruit group.

Cherry is a prized temperate fruit: eaten fresh, made into jam, tarts and pastries, juiced, or fermented into cherry brandy (kirsch) and liqueurs. The fruit is rich in vitamin C, provitamin A, potassium and anthocyanins (red pigments) with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, helpful for gout; some studies show sour cherries improve sleep via melatonin. Cherry wood is red-brown and figured, used for furniture and musical instruments. In Vietnam temperate cherries cannot be grown and the fruit is mainly imported; ornamental flowering cherries (some Prunus species) are planted in cool uplands such as Sa Pa and Da Lat.