Examples include Golden Glory, an upright, columnar plant Nana, a dwarf plant Elegantissima, with creamy white leaf variegations and Flava, with showy, yellow fruits. Varieties of cornelian cherry available from nurseries generally reflect the plant's present use mostly as an ornamental. You would also taste a range of flavors, in addition to getting twice as much vitamin C as you would from an equal weight of oranges. If you were to wander into forests of eastern Europe and western Asia, where the plant is native, you would find wild cornelian cherries with fruits that are barrel-shaped, pear-shaped, oval and round colors would vary from pink to almost black. Or convince your neighbor to also plant one. For cross-pollination, plant two different varieties of cornelian cherry. The flowers are not completely self-fertile, so cross-pollination increases fruit production. Deer resistant and clay tolerant, this species is very. Fruit is edible and uses are similar to those of tart cherries. Actually a dogwood, Cornelian cherries can be used in the shrub border or as a unique specimen. Even pruning can be more or less dispensed with.ĭespite the early bloom, fruit production rarely suffers because of the extended flowering period and the flowers' inherent tolerance for frost. Small but numerous yellow flowers are a welcome sight in April and are followed by bright red cherry like fruit in late summer. But while tart cherry needs care to fend off pests, you can expect annual harvests from cornelian cherry with little or no attention to spraying. In flavor and appearance, cornelian cherries are very similar to tart cherries. It's widely planted, strictly as an ornamental, its red fruits not usually eaten but adding to the visual show in summer. You could find the fruits for sale in European markets even up to the end of the 19th century.įor some reason, cornelian cherry has gone by the wayside you won't find it on a supermarket shelf, probably not even at a farmers' market. The fruit was popular in ancient Greece and Rome (and the tree provided a durable wood for chariot axles).īy the 18th century, cornelian cherry was common in English gardens, and shops sold rob de cornis, a thickened, sweet syrup of cornelian cherry fruits. At a site in northern Greece, Neolithic cave dwellers left traces of their meals of cornelian cherry, along with remains of einkorn wheat, barley, lentils and peas. The word 'cornelian' refers to the similarity in color of the fruit to cornelian (or carnelian) quartz.Įxcept in recent times, humans have enjoyed eating these fruits - for the past 7,000 years, in fact. The fruits - oval, fire-engine red, with a single stone - look a lot like grocers' cherries but are not related to them at all. Summer and fall also bring fruits, which, unknown to most people, are edible. Throughout summer, the tree sports healthy, satiny green leaves that, most years, turn mahogany red in the fall. In winter, the tree maintains a tidy appearance, livened by flaking bark patched with muted shades of tan and gray. Oregon State Univ.Besides its spring show, cornelian cherry is no slouch the rest of the year. officinalis reportedly has rusty patches of down in the axils of the veins. Additionally, the lower leaf surface of C. Sometimes reddish fall color, but generally poor with leaves falling off green. Leaves opposite, simple, ovate to elliptic, 5-10 cm long, 3-5 pairs of veins, dark green above. mas, flowers earlier, has longer pedicels (twice as long as bracts), ripens fruit later, and its exfoliating bark may be more colorful. Native to (or naturalized in) Oregon: Deciduous multistemed shrub or small tree, 20-25 ft ( 6-8m) high, spreading to 15 ft (4.5 m), oval-round outline, slender stems. officinalis (Japanese Cornel Dogwood), which, in comparison to C. Hardy to USDA Zone 4 Native to central and southern Europe and western Asia.Ī similar species is C. Prefers rich, well-drained soil, but adaptable to different soil types. Fruit an oblong drupe 1.6 cm long, bright cherry red, in mid-summer. Flowers open in early spring (too early?) before leaves appear, yellow, in short stalked umbels (20 mm in diam.) enclosed in 4 bracts before opening, each flower 1.5 mm in width.

Deciduous multistemed shrub or small tree, 20-25 ft ( 6-8m) high, spreading to 15 ft (4.5 m), oval-round outline, slender stems. Realizing that no plant is deerproof, plants in the Rarely Damaged, andSeldomRarelyDamagedcategories would be best for landscapes prone to deer damage.

Cornus mas deer