This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a small evergreen tree with a bit of an identity crisis, the Carolina Laurel-Cherry (Prunus caroliniana).
Carolina Laurel-Cherry is found throughout the southeastern coastal plain. It usually grows between fifteen and thirty feet tall. It tolerates shade and is often found growing on forest edges, under larger trees, or in thickets. It has smooth-ish, dull-gray bark and a bushy growth habit. Its leaves are simple, elliptical evergreen with a deep green color often tinted with a purplish-red cast. In mid-March, Carolina Laurel-Cherry goes into full bloom, becoming festooned with plumes of pearl-white flowers. Pollinated flowers grow into a black, egg-shaped drupe which takes until the following winter to mature. Carolina Laurel-Cherry, or just Cherry-Laurel, was christened with its confusing common name due to its resemblance to the Bay Laurel. The Bay Laurel, from which we get Bay leaves for seasoning, is also a small shrubby tree with large, simple, evergreen leaves and a black egg-shaped fruit, but with clusters of butter-yellow flowers instead of spikes of white. So “Laurel-Cherry” is a pretty apt common name for a Cherry that looks like a Laurel but, when it gets corrupted into “Cherry-Laurel” then woe to the novice botanist who just wants to know whether it’s a Cherry or a Laurel. Thankfully, we don’t have many Laurels in the Lowcountry, so it’s not that difficult for the uninitiated to straighten out.
Carolina Laurel-Cherry is a great native alternative for a tall hedge or small ornamental shade tree. Its flowers provide bountiful nectar in spring, its leaves give good shade throughout summer, their evergreen nature means they don’t shed in fall, and in winter their fruits provide food to wintering songbirds, turkeys, and small mammals. Carolina Laurel-Cherry is indeed a Cherry, so it also has toxic foliage and is thoroughly deer resistant. Yet, it is also the host plant for several species of butterfly, including the Tiger Swallowtail. Carolina Laurel-Cherry has merits for both wildlife and landscapers throughout the year and can make a great addition to most Lowcountry landscape plans.
