Prunus avium

Prunus avium, commonly called wild cherry, sweet cherry, gean, or bird cherry is a species of cherry, a flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is native to Europe, Anatolia, Maghreb, and Western Asia, from the British Isles south to Morocco and Tunisia, north to the Trondheimsfjord region in Norway and east to the Caucasus and northern Iran, with a small isolated population in the western Himalaya. The species is widely cultivated in other regions and has become naturalized in North America New Zealand and Australia.

Prunus avium has a diploid set of sixteen chromosomes (2n = 16). All parts of the plant except for the ripe fruit are slightly toxic, containing cyanogenic glycosides.