Prunus alabamensis C. Mohr

Alabama Black Cherry

Tree

Perennial

Vascular

Alabama Black Cherry is a native deciduous tree in the Rose family (Rosaceae). It occurs in scattered locations across the state. Alabama Black Cherry grows in dry sandy or rocky woodlands, often associated with Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris Miller). It is a small to medium sized tree reaching heights of 20-40 feet. The bark is gray and smooth on young limbs. On older limbs and the trunk is its rough and broken into plate-like sections and dark gray to almost black in color. Young shoots are green in color and pubescent. The leaves are deciduous, alternate, petiolate, ovate to elliptic in outline, with serrate margins. The leaves are dark green above and lighter green below. The leaves are uniformly pubescent below and lack tuffs of hairs in the axils of the veins. The leaves of Alabama Black Cherry turn red or orange in the autumn and persist on the tree longer than those of Common Black Cherry (Prunus serotina Ehrhart). Flowers are produced in elongate racemes from the axils of the leaves. The flowers have 5 white petals, and the rachis, peduncles, and calyx are pubescent. Alabama Black Cherry usually flowers about 2 weeks after Common Black Cherry has finished flowering. The fruit is a dark purple, globose drupe. Alabama Black Cherry is listed as a S1 species in Alabama (typically 5 or fewer occurrences, very few remaining individuals, acres, or miles of stream, or some factor of its biology making it especially vulnerable in the state) and globally as a G4 species (imperiled globally because of rarity (6 - 20 occurrences, or few remaining acres, or miles of stream) or very vulnerable to extinction throughout its range because of other factors).--A. Diamond

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Native S1 (State Rank) G4 (Global Rank)

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