The Wild Black Cherry.

The fruit is edible but the leaves are highly toxic releasing hydrogen cyanide when crushed...

 
   
 
 
 

The Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), also known as the wild black cherry, rum cherry and mountain black cherry, is native to eastern North and South America from eastern Canada to central Florida and in to the mountains of Mexico and Guatemala. The wild black cherry blooms in late spring. By midsummer the cherries are ripe and ready to pick. It’s inner bark has been used for centuries to make a cough syrup.

   
           

While the fruit is edible the leaves are highly toxic releasing hydrogen cyanide when crushed. You can find details about the various uses for black cherry bark at Plants for a Future.

The black cherry tree has a rapid growth rate and produces fruit at a young age which must be fully ripe otherwise it will have a bitter flavour. It is suitable for cooking in jams, pies, cakes and is used to flavour drinks and ice creams. Black cherry timber is valuable as a cabinetry timber with a fine grain and strong red colour. It is easy to work, strong and durable. The wood of the black cherry is used to smoke foods giving a unique flavour to cheese and smoked meats.

 

It seems wonderfully apt that the caterpillar of the Tiger Swallowtail, which can have similarly coloured black wings, feeds on the black cherry, despite the poisonous cyanide.