Often double and crowded with petals, white through pink to deep rose, in clusters on branching stalks in April.
Introduced · Up to 15 m
Ornamental cherry
Prunus serrulata and its garden kin · Rosaceae
Ornamental cherry is a low tree planted in streets, parks and gardens. In April it fills with blossom, often double and packed with petals. The young leaves are often red or bronze.
Often mistaken for wild cherry. How to tell them apart →Know it by
BlossomWhite through pink to deep rose, in clusters, in April.
LeavesUp to 20 cm, smooth on both sides, red or bronze when young.BarkPewter grey, a graft join near head height.
BlossomWhite through pink to deep rose, in clusters, in April.LeavesUp to 20 cm, smooth on both sides, red or bronze when young.BarkPewter grey, a graft join near head height.Then check · ShapeLow, with limbs rising in a funnel from one short, bare stem, and spreading wider as the tree ages.
How to identify an ornamental cherry
Up to 20 cm long and smooth on both sides, with a fine whisker on each tooth, and red or bronze when young.
Smooth and pewter grey, ringed with brown lines of raised dots, with a join near head height where the crown was grafted.
Learn the ornamental cherry in TreelyEvery part through the year, and a short round each day until you know it.Get Treely
Every part, in photographs
wild_wind, CC BY 4.0Jeremy Rolfe, CC BY 4.0When to look
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In leaf
Flowers
Fruit
In leaf: April to November · Flowers: April to May · Fruit: June to August
Where you’ll find it
Planted in streets, parks, front gardens, verges and churchyards, and never wild. It is a very popular garden tree in Britain, and some kinds have just the right shape for street planting.
What it’s mistaken for
- Bird cherryBoth carry cherry blossom, and red knobs on the leaf stalk. Flowers. Ornamental cherry: in clusters on branching stalks. Bird cherry: up to 35 strung down one spike.
- Cherry plumCherry plum also fills suburban streets with early blossom. Flowers. Ornamental cherry: in clusters on branching stalks. Cherry plum: mostly one to each long stalk.
In the app
There’s more of the ornamental cherry in Treely
- Every part, through the yearLeaves, bark, buds, flowers and fruit, photographed in every season
- Its lookalikes, side by sideThe checks that settle it, part by part
- A short round each dayUntil you know the ornamental cherry on sight, from any side
- Name it from a photoA leaf, the bark or a flower, and Treely tells you which tree
Free to download.
Every fact on this page is checked against the Collins Tree Guide, last in November 2026. Spotted something that looks wrong in front of a real tree? Tell us. How we check.
Photographs: charliefarrell2 (CC0), Jeremy Rolfe (CC BY 4.0), wild_wind (CC BY 4.0), jamie-aa (CC BY 4.0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.