# Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)

> The largest native cherry, a fast-growing tree with drooping spikes of white flowers in spring and black cherries in summer for birds, bears and jelly.

Also called wild black cherry, rum cherry, mountain black cherry. Category: Nut & Fruit Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-cherry/

![Black cherry (Prunus serotina) glossy toothed leaves and drooping spikes of small white flowers](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/black-cherry-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Ryan Hodnett, CC BY-SA 4.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABlack_Cherry_%28Prunus_serotina%29_-_Guelph%2C_Ontario_2017-06-03.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Large tree
- Mature height: 50 to 80 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 2 to 9
- Grows wild in: Rich moist slopes, dry uplands, old fields and edges
- Native range: 39 states and the District of Columbia, north to North Dakota, south to Florida and west to Washington (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia)
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average, Dry
- Growth rate: Fast
- Traits: Wildlife value, Edible, Showy flowers, Fall color
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

Black cherry is the largest native cherry and the only one grown for lumber, prized for its fine grain and warm reddish brown color. Unlike orchard cherries, it flowers after its leaves are out. The cherries are bitter off the tree but are used for jelly and wine. The old name rum cherry comes from Appalachian pioneers, who flavored their rum and brandy with the fruit. Its leaves feed the caterpillars of the eastern tiger swallowtail and the viceroy. It is a far larger tree than the chokecherry we grow, on a single trunk, and it does not sucker into thickets. Give it room as a shade tree or at a woodland edge, where it can grow tall in full sun.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Black cherry grows fast, about two and three quarter feet a year in our growth estimator while young. It makes a tree 50 to 80 feet tall with a crown 30 to 60 feet wide in the open. Trees first bear between 5 and 10 years old, and the heaviest crops come from trees 30 to 100 years old.

Drooping spikes of small white flowers, 3 to 6 inches long, open from April into June, after the leaves. Bees, flies and beetles work them. The cherries ripen from June in the South to September in the North, dark red turning black and about three eighths of an inch across. At least 33 kinds of birds eat them, from robins and thrushes to wild turkeys, and black bears, foxes and raccoons take them too.

It grows wild from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota and south to central Florida and eastern Texas, with outlying stands in central Texas and in the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. Its home is open woods, forest gaps, old fields and fence rows, and it does best on the cool, moist slopes of the Allegheny Plateau.

## How to grow Black Cherry

Black cherry wants full sun and takes light shade. It grows in most well-drained soils, acid to neutral, from moist to fairly dry. It will not stand wet ground or flooding. It drops fruit, leaves and twigs, so keep it off drives and patios. Plant it 30 feet from a wall, and set trees 30 feet apart. Keep it more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Sow the cleaned pits outdoors in early fall, an inch deep under hardware cloth. Some come up the first spring and more the second. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for three to four months first.

Water weekly through the first summer, then only in a long drought. Keep grass pulled back from young trees, since meadow voles hide in it and girdle the stems. Deer browse the seedlings, so guard each sapling with wire for its first few years.

Black cherry sets no seed with its own pollen, so plant two or more seedlings from different parents for a crop of cherries. Eastern tent caterpillars and the cherry scallop shell moth can strip the leaves in some years. Black knot is common, raising rough black swellings on twigs and branches. Ice and wet snow often bend young trees and break their leaders. Birds carry the pits far, and seedlings come up along fences and in open ground. The leaves, twigs, bark and pits are poisonous, and wilted leaves can sicken or kill livestock, so keep grazing animals away from fallen branches.

## Sources

- [USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: Black Cherry, Marquis 1990](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/black-cherry)
- [USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System: Prunus serotina, Uchytil 1991](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/pruser/all.html)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Prunus chapter](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Prunus.pdf)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Prunus serotina](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/prunus-serotina/)
- [The Morton Arboretum: Black cherry](https://mortonarb.org/plant-and-protect/trees-and-plants/black-cherry/)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Prunus serotina](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PRSE2)
- [USDA NRCS Plant Guide: Black cherry, Prunus serotina](https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_prse2.pdf)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 9: Prunus serotina](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=242417060)
- [Virginia Tech Dendrology: black cherry](https://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=66)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Prunus serotina](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.961463/Prunus_serotina)
- [State rare plant lists read for Prunus serotina: Illinois 2025 checklist](https://dnr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/dnr/espb/documents/et-list-review-and-revision/2025-illinois-list-revision/2025-e-t-checklist.pdf)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Native trees for the Great Lakes and Midwest: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-the-great-lakes-and-midwest/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for bees: pollen, nectar, nesting and a bloom calendar from willow to witch hazel](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-bees/index.html.md)
- [Six trees not to plant near a house, and what to plant instead](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/trees-not-to-plant-near-a-house/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Black Cherry, add ?species=black-cherry with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=black-cherry&zone=2&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for Black Cherry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=black-cherry): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=black-cherry
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Black Cherry is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=black-cherry
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Black Cherry needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=black-cherry:2
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Black Cherry flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.