Botanical atlas

Wild Black Cherry

Prunus serotina

For generations, the inner bark of the wild black cherry was scraped, dried, and aged by Cherokee, Iroquois, and other Native American healers, then passed along to European settlers as a remedy for coughs and colds. It became so trusted a household standby that it was listed in the official United States Pharmacopoeia for decades, and its flavor still lingers in cherry cough drops and cough syrups sold today. The ripe, pitted fruit itself has a long separate history as food, cooked into jellies, pies, and homemade wine across the Appalachian foothills and beyond. This is a tree of real duality: a cherished kitchen fruit growing on the same trunk as a bark that, if mishandled, turns dangerous.

Safety.

The leaves, twigs, seeds, and wilted or fresh bark contain cyanide-forming compounds and are toxic, sometimes fatally so to grazing livestock; only ripe, pitted fruit flesh and properly dried, aged bark are safe. Never forage or prepare this plant without expert identification and processing knowledge.