Why Wild Cherry Is Worth Knowing

Wild cherry, known in Scotland as the gean, is one of the loveliest trees in the British countryside and one of the easiest to walk past without noticing. For a fortnight in spring it covers itself in white blossom, then spends the summer quietly ripening small, dark, bitter fruit that most people dismiss as inedible. That is a mistake. Those little cherries make excellent jam, liqueur and game sauce, and the tree itself — Prunus avium, the true wild cherry — has a handful of features that make it straightforward to identify once you know what to look for.

It is also worth learning because it grows almost everywhere: woodland edges, old hedgerows, parkland, railway cuttings and the fringes of fields, especially on deeper, chalky or clay soils. Where light reaches the canopy, cherry follows.

Finding Wild Cherry in the Woodland

The best introduction is spring blossom. From mid-April into May, wild cherry carries clusters of white flowers on long stalks, opening at roughly the same time as the leaves. Because the flowers hang in small bunches rather than along a central stem, they look loose and airy — quite different from the tidy spikes of many other flowering trees.

Look at the bark next. Young trees have smooth, grey-purple bark marked with horizontal lines, called lenticels. Older specimens develop dark, scaly bark that peels away in horizontal ribbons, and the trunks often lean and twist towards the light. Mature wild cherries can reach 25 to 30 metres, making them one of our taller broadleaved trees, and they are usually the first cherry in a wood to catch your eye.

The leaves are oval, sharply toothed and slightly drooping, bright green above and paler beneath. Turn one over and you may see fine hairs along the veins. The clincher is the leaf stalk: at the point where the stalk meets the base of the leaf blade, wild cherry usually carries two small, raised red glands. Not every leaf shows them, but on a sunny day in June they are surprisingly reliable.

Telling It Apart from Bird Cherry and Cherry Plum

Two close relatives cause most of the confusion, and both are worth knowing.

• Bird cherry (Prunus padus) flowers in May, often after the leaves have opened, and the flowers sit in long cylindrical spikes rather than loose bunches. The leaves are duller, strongly veined and smell rank when crushed, and the bark has an unpleasant, heavy scent rather than a sweet one. Its fruit is small, black and hangs in dangling strings. It is technically edible but so astringent and bitter that it is best left to the birds.
• Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) flowers much earlier, often in February or March, on bare branches before any leaf appears. The fruit is noticeably larger, round and plum-like, ripening yellow, red or purple from July into September, and the stone comes away cleanly from the flesh. If the fruit is bigger than your thumbnail and tastes sharp but fruity rather than bitter, you have a cherry plum.

One important warning: cherry laurel, an evergreen shrub planted in gardens and sometimes found naturalised in woods, has glossy, leathery leaves that smell strongly of marzipan when crushed. Its leaves and seeds are toxic. If the leaf is thick and shiny in midwinter, walk on.

The Wild Cherry Year

Blossom arrives in April and May, followed by fresh leaves. Fruit sets in June and ripens from late June through July, sometimes into early August in the north. The cherries are small — rarely more than a centimetre across — and ripen from red to near-black. They are sweetest when fully dark, but even then they carry a bitterness that is part of their character.

Sap can be collected in late winter and early spring, before the buds burst, though cherry yields far less than birch or sycamore. A modest drink is realistic; a jar of syrup is not. If you do tap, choose a mature tree, drill one small hole no deeper than a few centimetres, and plug it afterwards with a whittled wooden bung.

Cooking with Wild Cherries and Their Leaves

Because the fruit is low in pectin, wild cherry jam needs help. Add lemon juice generously, or a handful of chopped windfall apple, and simmer until a spoonful wrinkles on a cold plate. The bitterness mellows with sugar and a little almond essence, which echoes the flavour of the stones.

For something simpler, fill a jar with pricked cherries, cover with sugar and gin or vodka, and leave for six weeks, shaking occasionally. The result is a deep red liqueur that beats most commercial cherry brandy. The same fruit, simmered with red wine vinegar, sugar and a few peppercorns, makes a sharp fruit vinegar for dressings.

In the kitchen, cherry pairs beautifully with duck, venison and pork: simmer the stoned fruit with a splash of port and a pinch of thyme until it collapses into a rough sauce. A chutney of cherries, onion, vinegar and brown sugar will keep for a year and improves a cheese board no end.

Cherry leaves have a long traditional use as a flavouring, steeped in hot milk or cream for ice cream and custards. Use only a small handful per litre, infuse briefly, and strain well. Do not eat the leaves raw in quantity, and never crush or eat the stones, which contain cyanogenic compounds.

Picking Well and Eating Safely

• Pick only from trees you have identified with certainty, and avoid roadside trees where exhaust and spray may be an issue.
• Spit out the stones, and cook the fruit rather than eating it by the handful.
• Leave plenty for birds and mammals — wild cherry is a vital food source in late summer.
• Never strip a tree, break branches or damage bark. On private land, always ask first.
• Wash fruit before use and discard any that are mouldy or already fermenting.

Learn one tree well this spring, return to it through the summer, and you will have a larder that most people walk straight past. Wild cherry rewards patience, and it tastes all the better for the effort.