Fruit Tree (?) Identification Please

steveTu

This 'tree' was planted over 5 years ago and has just started to flower now for the first time.

I think it must be one of cherry, apple, pear or damson/plum as we went through a phase of trying to grow new trees from the pips of what we'd eaten off the existing trees.

 

The 'old' fruit trees aren't in blossom yet, so I have nothing to compare the buds and flowers to. Nice blossom though eh? Made my day when I saw it - and it lasted through the storm over the weekend....

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

steephill

This early in the year I would think of cherry plum - prunus cerasifera.

BobTheGardener

Definitely in the prunus family and if grown from the seed from one of your existing cherry or plum trees, there's really no telling what the fruit will taste like due to cross-pollination.  However, the blossom looks great, so tasty fruit would only be a bonus!  Fingers crossed.

steveTu

Thank you both for your input.

Am I right in saying that fruit trees tend to be grafts onto a root stock, and then the fruit is from the graft tree, but the seeds the fruit contain pertains to the root stock? I thought I read that (or similar) somewhere. So what I'm seeing as blossom may be nothing like the blossom on the tree from whence the fruit came. So me comparing the blossom would/could have been a fruitless (ho ho ho) exercise anyway?

Dovefromabove

The fruit will be that if the top growth. 

The seeds within the fruit will depend on what pollen the blossom was pollinated with. 

The root stock the top growth is grafted onto only affects the vigour of the top growth ... nothing else. 

😊 

steveTu

@Dovefromabove @BobTheGardener

OK...well, not ok really....... so we could have planted pips/stones from the same tree and end up with a whole variety of different trees? I suppose it all makes sense when you think about it - I just hadn't really though about it before! I don't know why I had it in my brain that the seeds reflected the root stock.

So the root stock is like a home - a bungalow or a high-rise or a stately mansion ... and the grafted blossom are the residents who may come from all over the show - and the resulting seed depends on who passes by and has a passing dalliance with a resident....

pansyface

The rootstock is like the foundations and the scion, the top part, is your house, if you like. 

Flowers have two parts, male and female. When a flower is fertilised by another flower on another tree, half the genetic material from each flower goes to make the seeds. So, like children, they all have half of their parents’ genetic material but not all the same genetic material. Brothers don’t all look identical.