Early Purple Cherry

Cerasus propera - Early Cherry Tree

In the early 19th century, the Early Cherry Tree intrigued Parisian botanists. Duhamel du Monceau struggled to distinguish it from common cherry trees, while Le Berriays did not recognize it in the orchards of Nanterre and Poissy… where it nonetheless proliferated.

This confusion reveals a particularity: this cherry tree is cultivated only by suckers, never by grafting, for fear of losing its legendary precocity and the delicacy of its fruits. A lesson learned the hard way by the gardeners of Colombes who attempted to graft it.

A singular variety of the common cherry tree, the Early Cherry Tree is distinguished by its dwarf habit, rarely more than 4 to 5 meters high, and its remarkable precocity.

Multiplied exclusively by root suckers, it forms small trees with flattened tops and short, robust branches, capable of producing fruit as soon as they reach one meter in height.

Its cherries, a very bright red, round and slightly flattened at both ends, measure 23 to 25 millimeters in diameter. Initially tart, they acquire a perfect balance of sweetness and vibrancy upon ripening.

The fruit ripens in mid-June in open ground, making it one of the first cherries of the season. Widely cultivated around Paris (Puteaux, Neuilly, Courbevoie), this cherry tree requires warm, light soils to maintain its exceptional qualities.

This plate is extracted from Poiteau and Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers, a fruit 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 from the golden age of illustrated botany.