Re: Is hard maple the hardest wood?

> Fred the Red Shirt schreef

> > > Because they are? Like, just because _I_ don't like them doesn't mean

the aren't cherries. If you like bitter, then you would think they are good for eating. The birds evidently think they're good eating. All a matter of taste I suppose.

> > Would you say that Pacific bigleaf maple is not a maple because the

sap doesn't make good syrup?

"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote > > Maple is a genus, Acer, and was that long before maple syrup was invited. > Fred the Red Shirt schreef > That's a good argument, mind if I use it?
  • + + If you think it will help: go ahead
  • + +

Prunus is a genus, and was that long before cherries were cultivated.
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That is not so. What we now know as maple was also known as such to the Romans, and to the Greeks before them and propably many before them. When Men came to the New World he found new species of maple, but these clearly were maples. Maples have always been maples (for the last fifty million years or so). At one time the ones with pinnate leaves went into business on their own (Negundo) but this did not last. At the moment there is the question if Dipteronia should be included, but that is it. No other questions.

Prunus has been all over the place and has had its present (wide) circumscription for a decade or two or three or so. Not to be compared to the century (or two) of decades of recognizing maple. Obviously this is because it is unpopular to put plums, peaches, almonds, cherries and the small stuff together. They sure taste different. It is possible that in future Prunus will be split again. I believe there are quite a few people making a living by speculating (read: researching DNA and using lots of statistics) on how 'Prunus' species are related to one another.

  • + +
A little googling reveals to me that prunus avium, the succulent sweet > cherry native to Eurasia was first cultivated around 300 B.C. What I > haven't found is a description of the fruit of those early orchard trees > nor of prunus avium as it may still grow in the wild.
  • + +
I took a look in a book in a bookstore (Pomona Brittanica) that had it that cherries were found in human habitats archeologically back to the Stone Age. This is not cultivation but association. The wild cherries should occur here natively (according to the local Flora, NL) and do indeed have smaller fruits than nowadays in the shops. No surprise there!
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It is typical of cultivated fruits and vegitables that careful selection

> of seedstock has resulted in larger and sweeter fruits in the cultivated > varietals than what one finds in the wild counterparts. Even before > cultivation there was a selection effect. The more succulent fruits > were more likely to be gathered and brought to the human settlements > so that trees springing up from the discarded pits near those > settlements were more likely to be of the more succulent variety. > It may well be that 3000 years ago the fruit of prunus avium was > not much different from that of prunus serotina (North American black > cherry). > Aside from which, most orchard varietals these days are hybrids, > often hybrids of avium and serotina so that the cherries you eat > may be as closely related to the black cherry as to any other cherry.
  • + +

would be quite surprised if present day orchard trees were hybrids between Prunus avium and Prunus serotina. I could find nothing of the sort, either on the net or in the books at hand. However, stranger things have happened, and plant breeders will stop at nothing ;-)

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> Cherry is an edible fruit, born by a cherry tree. It too once was a

genus (Cerasus), and Padus serotina / Prunus serotina certainly did not fit in. ======

My sources indicate that Prunus cerasus is the sour cherry. Not good > eating, unless you like sour, but good for wine and cooking. Birds > like those too, though as you noted, that isn't really releveant.
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Prunus cerasus is the sour cherry. For quite a while it was Cerasus vulgaris. Likely it is not a real species but a hybrid.

Prunus avium is the sweet or wild cherry. For quite a while it was Cerasus avium.

The genus Cerasus counted a few more species but never was a big genus.

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> This belonged to Padus, the bird cherry.

======

Well, is the bird cherry a cherry or not?
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Tell us about the time you tasted Brazilian cherry!
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If not, what is it?

> For that matter, if the fruit borne by serotina is not a cherry, > what is it? Surely not a plum!
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Nevertheless plums are Prunus too! Prunus also has Prunus cerasifera, the Cherry plum.
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For that matter, what about the cherries common to Japanese gardens

> and that grow around the tidal basin in Washington DC?
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These are called cherries because of the flowers
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It seems to

> me that the quality of the fruit is simply not particularly relevent > to classification of the trees--or of the fruit they bear. > Thanks for the discussion. > -- > FF
Reply to
P van Rijckevorsel
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I noticed a lot of variation in the classification at different websites. I think you're right, the geneticists will get the final word (for a while) on the issue.

One thing, er, two actually I'm sure we agree on is that the wood of the black cherry is not much like the wood of the orchard cherry, nor is the fruit.

Reply to
Fred the Red Shirt

Fred the Red Shirt schreef

the black cherry is not much like the wood of the orchard cherry, nor is the fruit.

  • + + Actually the woods are more alike than the fruits and certainly the wood of the black cherry is closer to that of the sweet cherry than to that of "Brazilian cherry" PvR
Reply to
P van Rijckevorsel

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