Sweet and sour cherries are different species, P. avium and P. cerasus, respectively. Both species originate in Europe and western Asia, with major commercial orchards extending from Iberia east to Asia Minor; they are also grown to a smaller extent north to the British Isles and southern Scandinavia.
In the United States, most sweet cherries are grown in the West. California and Washington supply mainly sweet cherries intended for fresh use. Major sweet cherry varieties include the Bing, Brooks, Tulare, King, and Rainier. Oregon and Michigan provide light-colored Royal Ann (Napoleon) cherries for the maraschino cherry process. Most tart cherries are grown in four states bordering the Great Lakes – Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
As well as the fruit, cherries also have attractive flowers, and they are commonly planted for their flower display in spring. Some flowering cherry trees (known as 'ornamental cherries') have the stamens replaced by additional petals ("double" flowers), so are sterile and do not bear fruit. They are grown purely for their blossom and decorative value. The Japanese sakura, in particular, is a national symbol celebrated in the yearly Hanami festival.
Cherries have a very short fruiting season. In Australia, they are usually at their peak around Christmas time, and in the UK they are generally ready for picking in early summer. Annual world production (as of 2003) of cherries is about 3 million tonnes (one third are sour cherries).
Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs, including the plums, cherries, peaches, apricots and almonds.
Because of their considerable value as both food and ornamental plants, many Prunus species have been introduced to parts of the world to which they are not native.
Prunus laurocerasus - Cherry Laurel, of the Balkans and West Asia.
A cherry (originally "cherise" reinterpreted as a plural, from the Old French word, in turn from Latin cerasum) is both a tree and its fleshy fruit, a type known as a drupe with a single hard stone enclosing the seed.
The cherry belongs to the family Rosaceae, genus Prunus (along with almonds, peaches, plums, apricots and bird cherries).
The cherries belong in subgenus Cerasus, distinguished from the rest of the genus by having the flowers in small corymbs of several together (not singly, nor in racemes), and in the fruit being smooth and not having a groove along one side.
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