Wild Cherry

The Wild Cherry or Gean is well suited to farmland and well-drained slopes in Galloway and the South, through Lothian and Angus to the Eastern Highlands and Deeside, and the rich farmlands around the Moray Firth. In many of these places there has been a tradition of planting them by farmhouses – to mark or adorn the place, and to supply delicious Cherries when the Summer has been good. It is in late Spring and early Summer when this fairly small tree really stands out, when it is covered in blossom – ‘blàar’ in Gaelic – a great spray of white flowers on long open stems. The flowers open as the delicate finely toothed leaves begin to emerge on the shiny grey/brown twigs, becoming long and spear-shaped. From the flowers the Cherries – ‘silisdear’ in Gaelic - grow from green to red on the stems, in a particularly good Summer to dark red like cultivated Cherries. Birds eat the Cherries and carry the seeds far away, but seeds struggle to germinate and develop in the wild, and the tree commonly reproduces by sending up new shoots from the shallow spreading roots – in Gaelic ‘freumhan’. The bark is mottled grey and orange, becoming deep red and grey and shiny, peeling and cracked on old trees. The pale orange timber is fine-grained and valued for turning and in-lay work. The Wild Cherry, or Gean, is hardy to Northern parts, and fairly tolerant of peaty conditions, but not water logging. In the Autumn, in the North-East in particular, the leaves turn deep crimson.