Bigarreau Cherry 'Gros Coeuret'

Cerasus bigarella amarella - Gros Cœuret Bigarreau Cherry

Among the bigarreau cherry trees of the early 19th century, the Gros Cœuret stands out for its elegant pyramidal silhouette and its remarkable horizontal growth habit.

Poiteau notes with precision that its branches "support" better than any other variety after the Bigarreau de Francfort.

But it is above all its fruit, short heart-shaped and almost black when ripe, that fascinates: its transparent skin reveals purple marbling in the flesh, creating an exceptional play of chromatic depth for the time.

This vigorous fruit tree produces strong buds with a characteristic silvery epidermis, often cracked, revealing a green-brown bark.

Its cheerful green leaves, never yellowish, have large obtuse teeth and petioles often tinged with purple. The flowers, among the earliest of bigarreau cherries, bloom in clusters of five, pure white carried by coppery peduncles.

The fruit itself, compressed on two sides, changes from yellowish white to marbled red before reaching a deep, almost black crimson. Its crisp, intensely purple-red flesh requires perfect ripeness, mid-July, to reveal its full flavor and lose its initial bitterness.

The large, swollen pit attests to the vegetative power of this collector's variety.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers (Treatise on Fruit Trees), a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalistic illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates of the golden age of illustrated botany.