Prunus fasciculata
Prunus speciosa
desert almond, desert peach, wild almond
Japanese flowering or oriental cherry
with axillary end buds, glabrous or canescent.
with terminal end buds, glabrous.
deciduous;
sessile;
blade oblanceolate to linear, 0.5–2 × 0.1–0.2(–0.4) cm, base long-attenuate, margins nearly entire or obscurely and remotely serrulate in distal 1/3, teeth blunt to sharp, sometimes glandular, apex rounded to acute, surfaces puberulent or glabrous or low-papillate (var. punctata).
deciduous;
petiole 7–45 mm, glabrous, glandular, glands 2–4, discoid;
blade elliptic to obovate, 5–17 × 3–8 cm, base obtuse to rounded, margins singly to doubly serrate, teeth aristate, glandular, apex caudate, surfaces glabrous.
solitary flowers or 2-flowered fascicles.
(2–)3–5(–6)-flowered, corymbs;
central axes 5–25(–60) mm.
0–4 mm, glabrous.
10–40 mm (subtended by leafy bracts), glabrous or sparsely hairy.
unisexual, plants dioecious, blooming at leaf emergence;
hypanthium campanulate, 1.5–3 mm, glabrous externally;
sepals erect-spreading, triangular, 0.7–1 mm, margins entire, surfaces glabrous;
petals white to yellowish, elliptic, obovate, or suborbiculate, 1.4–2.5(–4) mm;
ovaries hairy.
blooming at leaf emergence;
hypanthium tubular, 4–8 mm, glabrous externally;
sepals spreading to reflexed, oblong-ovate to lanceolate, 3–8 mm, margins entire or toothed, eglandular, surfaces glabrous;
petals white or pink, suborbiculate to oblong-obovate, 8–18 mm;
ovaries glabrous.
gray to red-brown, ovoid, ± compressed, 7–15 mm, densely puberulent;
hypanthium tardily deciduous;
mesocarps leathery to dry;
stones ovoid, ± flattened.
black, globose, 10–13 mm, glabrous;
mesocarps fleshy;
stones ellipsoid, slightly flattened.
= 16 (Japan).
Prunus fasciculata
Prunus speciosa
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
The name Prunus serrulata has been widely applied to P. speciosa by North American botanists and horticulturalists (for example, P. G. Russell 1934; A. J. Rehder 1940); some Japanese cherry experts now circumscribe P. serrulata more narrowly so that it includes only the white-petaled, double-flowered cultivars closely resembling the nomenclatural type. The single-flowered plants that are found escaping rarely and perhaps naturalizing in the flora area have been called P. lannesiana (Carrière) E. H. Wilson forma albida (Makino) E. H. Wilson or P. speciosa. Based on principal components analysis of 35 morphological characters from 468 individuals of the P. serrulata complex and related taxa, K. S. Chang et al. (2007) argued that forma albida is distinctive and separated from other taxa of the P. serrulata complex. H. Ohba (2001) recognized it at species rank as Cerasus speciosa (Koidzumi) H. Ohba. The classification and nomenclature of Japanese flowering cherries are complex, convoluted, and subject to varying interpretations, and no attempt is made to resolve them here. Centuries of selection and hybridization have blurred species distinctions, and it may be best to do as horticulturalists have and forsake botanical species names in favor of traditional and cultivar names. Whatever the name, these Japanese flowering cherries are widely grown as ornamentals where winters are not too cold nor summers too hot; they escape only rarely and have been found naturalizing only near planted specimens.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Leaf blades sparsely to densely puberulent, not papillate. | var. fasciculata |
1. Leaf blades glabrous, sometimes papillate. | var. punctata |
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