This tree is the Cerasus serotina of De Candolle, and the Cerasus virginiana of Michaux. It was long confused with and went by the name of Prunus virginiana, which properly belongs to the Choke cherry, as given by Linnæus (see Related Species).
The wild cherry tree is found in many parts of the United States, but is most abundant, and attains the greatest magnitude, in the southwestern states. Its flowers appear in May, and the fruit ripens in August and September. The official portion is the bark, and that of the root should be preferred to that of the trunk and branches. It should be renewed annually, as its properties are much impaired by age. As officially described, wild cherry bark is “in curved pieces or irregular fragments, 2 Mm. (1/12 inch) or more thick, outer surface greenish-brown, or yellowish-brown, smooth and somewhat glossy, marked with transverse scars; if the bark is collected from old wood, and deprived of the corky layer, the outer surface is nut-brown and uneven; inner surface somewhat striate or fissured. Upon maceration in water it develops a distinct bitter-almond odor. Its taste is astringent, aromatic, and bitter. The bark of the very large and of the very small branches is to be rejected”—(U. S. P.). Water and alcohol take up its virtues; boiling impairs its medicinal properties, by driving off the hydrocyanic acid. That gathered in the fall of the year is the best, inasmuch as it yields more hydrocyanic acid than that collected at any other season; the bark collected in the spring being the least desirable. In order to establish whether a given specimen of bark was collected in autumn, Grace E. Cooley (Journal of Pharmacology, 1897, p. 167) recommended to test it for starch and tannin. The starch contained in bark reaches a maximum in spring (April) and in autumn (October), and disappears almost entirely in summer and in winter. Tannin occurs in spring bark in a notably greater quantity than in bark collected in autumn. The distinction is recognizable by means of the ferric chloride test for tannin (for details, see the original paper). Hence, the bark collected in autumn is characterized chemically by containing much starch and little tannin, and yielding the largest amount of hydrocyanic acid.