Prunus virginianaL.

chokecherry

WFO wfo-0001016575 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Prunus virginiana, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. a Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-09 / obs. 205659989
Prunus virginiana, photographed by Carol Ann Vermeer
fig. b Carol Ann Vermeer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205438998
Prunus virginiana, photographed by Carol Ann Vermeer
fig. c Carol Ann Vermeer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204856136
Prunus virginiana, photographed by Bob Walker
fig. d Bob Walker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203521090
Prunus virginiana, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. e Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204365521
Prunus virginiana, photographed by Ian Adams
fig. f Ian Adams, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205679945
Prunus virginiana, photographed by Pierre Cartier
fig. g Pierre Cartier, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203188012
Prunus virginiana, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. h Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204491654

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 4,097 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 4,097 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 97 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Amygdalus besseriana Schott ex Shltdl.
  • Amygdalus gaertneriana Schltdl.
  • Amygdalus pallasiana Schltdl.
  • Amygdalus serratifolia K.Koch
  • Cerasus demissa Nutt.
  • Cerasus demissa var. melanocarpa A.Nelson
  • Cerasus densiflora Spach
  • Cerasus duerinckii M.Martens
  • Cerasus fimbriata Spach
  • Cerasus hirsuta Spach
  • Cerasus micrantha Spach
  • Cerasus obovata L.C.Beck
  • Cerasus serotina Hook.
  • Cerasus virginiana (L.) Michx.
  • Cerasus virginiana var. humilior Michx.
  • Cerasus virginiana var. micropyrena Lavallée
  • Cerasus virginiana var. pendula G.Kirchn.
  • Cerasus virginica (Michx.) hort.
  • Cerasus virginica Michx. ex Anon.
  • Padus calophylla Wooton & Standl.
  • Padus demissa (Nutt.) M.Roem.
  • Padus densiflora (Spach) M.Roem.
  • Padus duerinchii (M.Martens) M.Roem.
  • Padus fimbriata (Spach) M.Roem.

and 73 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.