Cornelian Cherries/Cornus mas

Just wanted to share a pic of my cornelian cherries this year. The pic shows 3 varieties, 'Pioneer' on the left, 'Yellow' in the center and "Golden Glory" on the right. The pic shows how the fruit sizes compare. For me, the larger the fruit variety, the fewer the fruits. 'Golden Glory' seems to be a good pollinator. You'll have to look at the second post to see the pic.

Sorry, I tried to post the pic, but the web site (daves garden) is not giving me a send button after doing the preview of the pic. I'll have to try some other time.

I would love to see the pictures when Dave's will take them.

Here's the pic and I think I figured out what the problem was.

Thanks for posting about this tree. I had never heard of it, but am now determined to learn more. It might even be something I could use here in New Mexico. It certainly is cold tolerant.

I love cherries alot. My favorite is the Rainer cherry, but I have only tasted rainer. bing and the small wild cherries. I purchased a Rainer and Stella last year. This year I purchased the Hansen bush cherry and a New variety Carmine Jewel Dwarf Cherry. The Carmine is suppose to taste better than any other cherry and it is self pollinating and only grows about 6 feet.

http://gurneys.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_30
http://gurneys.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_72500

Cynthia, Cornelian cherries are not "real" cherries, but dogwood fruit. They look a lot like cherries, but fruit late summer or fall.

Pajari, C. mas is very cold tolerant, slow growing, but relatively easy.

I like the idea of late summer, fall fruit. That probably means that the blossoms don't get nipped by the frost very often. Are the flowers pretty like regular dogwood, if there is such a thing.

This is way I love Dave's. I learn something new each time I post. I put the Fruits and Nuts and cherries together and thought Yummmmm! LOL!

Similar to forsythia in color and timing, maybe a bit earlier. Blossoms are much smaller than forsythia or other dogwood. One of the first things to bloom (March around here) Very cold hardy. Blossoms don't seem to be bothered by frost or reasonable freeze.

Glad to be of help - I learn new things here too.

Krowten, I have some Cornus mas which I planted a year ago. No fruiting yet...What do they taste like?

Passie, How to describe a flavor??? One of my favorite fruits. If the fruit is not ripe, it is very astringent and virtually inedible. I wait for the fruit to fall from the tree, then gather it up. I put in a zip bag to keep fruit flies out and let to further ripen. The fruit needs to fully ripen so that it is soft (and on the verge of rotting) before eating. Some call this bletting, but I am not sure if it applies to C. mas fruit.

Fruit flavor is rich and complex with some tartness. Some have described as similar to a plum. I've eaten 6 different varieties at this point and there is some similarity in flavor, but also significant differences in some of the varaties. If you can estimate something halfway between a sweet black cherry and a plum, with some tartness thrown in, you might be close. It's one of those fruits that does not store well once it is ready to eat, and there is some significant wastage as not all the fruits ripen properly for eating.

I'm pretty excited right now as earlier today a new friend had sent me seed from three unnamed varieties that he got from Czechoslovakia. They arrived today. However, he did not want to take the time to clean the seed, so sent fresh fruit. While some of it was in bad shape, I got to see and taste three new varieties today. Now I've got to get the seed to grow.

Passie, do you know the variety you are growing.? Some are reportedly self-fertile, but not all of them, so you may want to consider another as a pollinator. Also, this is one of those trees that can bloom for a few years without setting fruit, as flowers do not fully develop until the plant is more mature so if you are looking for fruit, you may want to pick up a second before waiting too long. I would recomment Pioneer or Yellow for fruit quality, but Imy experience is limited with the named varieties.

Pears take 6 or 7 years to produce fruit. I bet this cherry produces sooner than pears.

krowten: what do they taste like?

gloria, see above - I tried to answer this one already.

Thanks, Krowten.

Krowten, I have 3 : Sunrise, Elegant and Golden Glory. The GG did flower this spring but the others didn't. They are about 4 feet tall. I will wait and see what happens next spring.

I have tasted Cornus kousa fruit (kinda pithy, hope it was edible) and Cornus florida (not edible, hope it isn't poisonous!) this fall and will look forward to my Cornus mas when it is ready.

Passie, I love the taste of C. kousa, but there is precious little that is edible. Once you remove the skin and pith, there is a small amount of gel around the individual seeds that is great. I have a small var. "Big Apple" that did not fruit this year, probably because of the late hard freeze spell we had. I had Elegant (c. mas) a few years ago, and lost it before it fruited. I bought another this year. My Sunrise was killed by the freeze this spring.

For some reason, the spring freeze killed nearly all of my Eleagnus, a couple of smaller C. mas, my che and a couple of smaller Issai kiwis. I was not expecting the Eleagnus and C. mas to have problems. It was very warm for a while and they had all started to leaf out, then we dropped into the low twenties for a week or so.

I have GG here and it does well for me. I expect you may see some fruit next year. You can tell the flower buds in the fall. The are round, slightly smaller than 1/4" and scattered throughout the tree. Check out your Sunrise and Elegant for them. Since GG bloomed for you, you should be able to find them on it as well. However, remember that they may bloom a few years before fruiting, especially if they are small. My C. mas have all started fruiting when the main stem gets around 1" in diameter.

Thanks! It is great to find someone so knowledgeable about Cornus mas. I will check all my trees for buds.

The C. kousa fruits I tried were from my "summer stars" cultivar, the first time it fruited was this year. I also have 2 "big apple"s but they are small and haven't flowered.

Next time I taste C. kousa I will try to focus on the seed gel and see if I enjoy it more.

I checked for buds as you suggested; the Golden Glory and Sunrise have buds but the Elegant doesn't. Thanks for the tip!

What varieties do you have? I was planning on getting others. I have a gift certificate to Forest Farm and they offer Aurea and Variegata. Have you tried those?

Passie, I've had bad luck with Forest Farm. Long story, but half of what I bought several years ago died, turned out to be misnamed or wasn't as nice a var as is available elsewhere. Dealing with them for replacesments took almost a year and the one plant that did get replaced finally fruited this year and I found out it was a related but completely different species. They told me they would check into a replacement a month ago, after checking their stock and verifying the problem, but have been silent since. I've been on the verge of "negative-ing" them in Watchdog for years, but they are so popular... I do know that they try to keep people happy, but it has been such a headache for me. They have things that you cannot find anywhere else, but when I have a choice I do go elsewhere.

Regarding C. mas varieties, I have an unnamed seedling, Pioneer, Elegant, Yellow, GG. I think I lost Red Star and Sunrise this spring. I have a bunch of seeds in the fridge stratifying, including GG, Pioneer and Yellow. also in the fridge are 3 unnamed Czech vars seeds that I just received. So far, I have not successfully started C. mas from seed, but I think this spring will show success. I will be buying a couple more in the spring, just trying to make up my mind as to what I will get.