Herb. No. 157 · Rosaceae
Eastern North American black cherry of woods and old fields.
Native · North America
Native Also grown
LegalCautionplant
Wild cherry
Prunus serotina
Black cherry of eastern woods — a cough-bark folklore, and a tree whose wilted leaves are a livestock warning.
Wild black cherry is a tall eastern North American tree. Traditional use of the inner bark is as a cough syrup flavor and a mild sedative expectorant. Culinary fruit is for jelly, pits out. Wilted leaves have killed cattle. This plate is a labeled bark syrup or a careful inner-bark from a tree you own — not a pit tea.
Flavor
Bark syrup is almond-cherry, bitter, a little medicine-cabinet. Fruit is astringent-sweet.
Parts used
Inner bark · Fruit (pits out)
Helpful
- A native timber tree
- Fruit for jelly
Cautions
- Wilted leaves are toxic to livestock
- Pits are not a tea
- Bark harvest can wound a tree