Online Virtual Flora of Wisconsin

Prunus virginiana L.

Family: Rosaceae

chokecherry

[Padus virginiana (L.) Mill.]

Janice Stiefel

Matthew L. Wagner

University of Wisconsin - Madison (WIS-VP)

Open Interactive Map

Etymology: Prunus: ancient Latin name for the plum
Plants: perennial tree
Conservation Status: Native

Forests of pine, oak-pine, oak-basswood, maple-birch, oak-hickory, sugar maple-basswood, red maple-balsam fir-spruce-pine, sugar maple-beech, white cedar-yellow birch-tamarack, sugar maple-pine-birch-white cedar, hemlock-hardwoods, mixed conifers, aspen, oak-white ash, red maple-elm, aspen-birch, oak-maple, silver maple-willow-green ash, silver maple-swamp white oak. Also in oak barrens, forested dunes, sandspits, sedge meadows, rock outcrops, cliffs, along railroads and roadsides, fields, pine barrens, prairies, riverbanks and along streams, old quarries, swamp borders, pine relicts, thickets, beach ridges, talus slopes, pine plantations. This is a ubiquitous shrub or small tree found across the entire state. Like black cherry, choke cherry has benefited from post-settlement landscape changes and they are often found growing together. The two are usually easily told apart via the characters in the key but also differ in choke cherry having leaves glabrous beneath. Occasionally there may be pubescence along the midrib and in the lateral veins’ axils, which will extend along the lateral veins themselves; leaf underside pubescence in black cherry is restricted to the midrib. Prunus padus L. is a Eurasian species that is sometimes cultivated and has escaped in other states. It closely resembles P. virginiana but differs in its larger petals: 6–9 mm long.

- tall shrub or small tree

- branches lacking spines

- pair of glands at top of petiole (base of blade)

- elongate raceme with 12-20 or more flowers

- leaves obovate to lanceolate, widest at or above the middle, dull above

- margins finely serrate - the teeth narrowly acuminate and ascending to spreading

- sepals lined with 10 or more glands

- leaves usually glabrous below, if hairs, they are whitish or yellowish and conentrated in the axils of the lateral veins (not restricted to the midvein and rust-colored as in P. serotina)