Pin cherry

Conservation Status

IUCN Red List

LC - Least Concern

NatureServe

N5? - Secure
SNR - Unranked

Minnesota

not listed

Wetland Indicator Status

Great Plains

FACU - Facultative upland

Midwest

FACU - Facultative upland

Northcentral & Northeast

FACU - Facultative upland

Description

Pin cherry is common from New England to the upper Midwest and across southern Canada, uncommon and scattered west of the Great Plains. It is common throughout Minnesota except for the southwest quarter.

This is a small, fast-growing, short-lived, deciduous tree. It rises on a single stem from a shallow, spreading root system. Most roots are within 24″ of the soil surface. In other areas it can be from 10′ to 45′ in height and up to 20″ in diameter at breast height. In Minnesota it is usually no more than 25′ tall and 8 ″ in diameter. It reproduces mostly by root sprouts and often forms thickets. In forests, it rarely germinates, and when it does, the saplings rarely survive except in large openings with plentiful moisture and light. Seedlings mostly appear in a forest after heavy cutting, burning, or a blow down. They mature rapidly and live only 20 to 40 years.

The trunk is fairly straight and sometimes leaning. The crown is narrow and rounded at the top. The branches on young trees are ascending. As the tree ages, the branches become nearly horizontal.

The bark on young trees is thin, smooth, shiny, and dark reddish-brown with numerous conspicuous, long, horizontal, pore-like openings (lenticels). The lenticels are widely-spaced, raised, warty, and orange. As the tree ages the bark turns gray. On mature trees the bark is rough and sometimes peels in horizontal strips, and the lenticels are rougher and darker.

The twigs are very slender, hairless, shiny, and red or reddish-brown, with tiny, orange, dot-like lenticels. They are covered with a grayish skin at first but that quickly wears off. They have brown pith and a disagreeable bitter almond taste. The leaf scars are half-round to elliptical. They have 3 bundle scars .

Lateral buds are small, 1 ⁄16″ to ⅛″ long, rounded, and reddish-brown. They diverge slightly from the twig. The terminal bud is similar and appears with a cluster of two or more lateral buds at the end of the twig.

The leaves are deciduous, alternate, and clustered at the ends of the twigs. They are on ⅜″ to ¾″ long, hairless leaf stalks (petioles). The petioles often have one to three, more often two, small, red, wart-like swellings (glands) near the tip where the petiole meets the blade. The leaf blades are lance-shaped, 1¾″ to 4¾″ long, and ⅝″ to 2″ wide, 2 to 3 times longer than wide. They are broadly angled or rounded at the base and taper to a long point at the tip with concave sides along the tip. The upper surface is shiny, hairless and dark yellowish-green. The lower surface is paler and usually hairless, sometimes hairy along the main veins at first, becoming hairless. The margins are finely and irregularly toothed all the way to the base with sharp or rounded, forward pointing teeth. There is a small red or yellow gland at the tip of each tooth near the sinus. In autumn the leaves turn yellow.

The inflorescence is 2 to 5, sometimes 6 or 7, flowers in an stalkless umbrella-shaped (umbel-like) or flat-topped cluster (corymb) at the end of a short, 1 ⁄32″ to 5 ⁄16″long, branch-like base (fascicle). The clusters appear at the ends of current year twigs and at the axils of previous year branchlets. Each flower is on a hairless, ⅜″ to ¾″ long flower stalk (pedicel). Each pedicel is subtended by a minute, modified leaves(bracts). The flowers open in early May to mid-June when the leaves are about half size.

Each flower is about ½″ in diameter. There are 5 sepals, 5 petals, 10 to 30 stamens, and 1 style. The sepals are green, 1 ⁄32″ to ⅛″ long, untoothed, hairless, and bent backward. The petals are white, ⅛″ to ¼″ long, and conspicuously narrowed at the base (clawed). The claw is about 1 ⁄32″ long. The expanded portion of the petal is elliptic, inversely egg-shaped, or almost circular. The stamens have white filaments and yellow anthers.

The fruit is a fleshy, one-seeded, spherical or ellipse-shaped, ¼″ to ⅜″ in diameter drupe. It is green at first, turning bright red, shiny, and very sour when it matures in early July to late mid-August. The seed is not flattened.

Height

10″ to 45″

Record

There is no current champion pin cherry tree in Minnesota.

Flower Color

White

Similar Species

American plum (Prunus americana) bark is gray. The branches have stout spines. There are only 2 to 4 flowers or fruits per umbel.

Black cherry (Prunus serotina var. serotina) mature bark is thick, dark, blackish, and scaly. The leaves are dark green above, not yellowish-green. The leaf tip is not a drawn out point. The inflorescence is a 3″ to 6″ long cluster of 20 to 60 flowers.

Habitat

Dry to moderate moisture. Open forests, forest edges and openings, streamsides, roadsides, burned-over and other disturbed areas. Shade intolerant.

Ecology

Flowering

Early May to mid-June

Pests and Diseases

Cherry Leaf Spot (Coccomyces hiemalis)

Use

Distribution

Sources

2, 3, 5, 7, 24, 28, 30, 83.

Biodiversity occurrence data published by: Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas (accessed through the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas Portal, bellatlas.umn.edu. Accessed 7/28/2026).

Midwest Herbaria Portal. 2026. https://midwestherbaria.org/portal/index.php. Accessed 7/28/2026.

Prunus pensylvanica L.fil. in Bánki, O., Roskov, Y., Döring, M., Ower, G., Hernández Robles, D. R., Plata Corredor, C. A., Stjernegaard Jeppesen, T., Örn, A., Pape, T., Hobern, D., Garnett, S., Little, H., DeWalt, R. E., Miller, J., Orrell, T., Aalbu, R., Abbott, J., Abreu, C., Acero P, A., et al. (2026). Catalogue of Life (2026-07-17 XR). Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgykv

Smith, Welby R. 2008. Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota: The Complete Guide to Species Identification. The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.