Prunus avium 'Plena'

Prunus avium 'Plena'.  Photos taken 15th April 2014 (a very early year), when a lot of the flowers are opening but the leaves are still small and reddish.

This a double variety of Wild Cherry. It flowers a bit later than most single-flowered Wild Cherry trees, and even from a distance has a noticeably different appearance when flowering: more tufty and irregular, the flowers less obviously sleeving the shoots.


When you get a bit closer, it's a magical tree, especially when the skies are like this. The pure white blossom has a touch of the same frilly opulence as 'Shirotae',  but here it's sprinkled through a rangy, open canopy.

[For comparison, the photo below is a single-flowered P. avium, showing the blossom sleeving the shoot:  ]

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Another year, another tree. It was 6th April
2019 and the plump buds were just beginning to open on this big tree in Frome, Somerset: