Sweet Cherry is an uncommon escape from cultivation in North Carolina, found as an occasional tree in deciduous or mixed forest understories. Sweet Cherry flowers in early spring, as trees are leafing out.

The inflorescences are subtended by short leafy bracts, lacking in plums.

Carroll Co., VA 4/11/10.

This inflorescence is subtended by an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

Carroll Co., VA 4/11/10.

Carroll Co., VA 4/11/10.

Carroll Co., VA 4/11/10.

The leaves are very similar to those of Sour Cherry (Prunus cerasus), also an occasional escape from cultivation, but about twice as large and hairy beneath.

Carroll Co., VA 4/11/10.

The bark is gray and relatively smooth.

Carroll Co., VA 4/11/10.

The leaves are abruptly long-pointed with coarse rounded teeth and a pair of glands on the petiole near the base of the leaf blade. Compare with the native American Plum (P. americana). Leaf shape and look of the flowers are somewhat similar, but note that the plum has sharply pointed teeth, lacks the glands on the petiole, and lacks the bracts at the base of the inflorescence.

Battle Park, Chapel Hill, Orange Co., NC 4/3/05.