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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-1145
Escarpment Cherry
Prunus serotina
Escarpment cherry is the Texas Hill Country form of black cherry, a smaller limestone-loving tree whose small dark fruit is edible once ripe and pitted - eaten raw, cooked into jelly and pie, or fermented into wine - while the wood is a rich reddish-brown cabinet timber. Every other part of the tree, leaves, bark, twigs and seed kernels, contains cyanide-producing compounds strong enough to harm livestock that browse wilted or frosted foliage. Birds spread the seed widely and a crop germinates over several years, building a seed bank that can sit suppressed in shade for decades before a gap in the canopy lets it flush into a thicket. It needs sun to grow past seedling size and struggles on heavy clay, but tolerates alkaline, lime-rich soil better than the wider-ranging eastern form of the species.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–8
- Soil
- Silt · Loam
- Moisture
- Moderate · Moist · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- Not yet recorded
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 45–50 ft
- Mature spread
- 30–60 ft
- Plant spacing
- Not yet recorded
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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