Welcome to the Wild Cherry Tree

Wild cherry close up 1 (copyright Cath Potter)

Family Activity

  • Do you think real cherries grow on this tree?
  • Stand right underneath the branches (not if it’s really windy) & look up – can you see how the branches look like a leafy umbrella above you?
  • Imagine raindrops falling on this leafy umbrella – with your finger in the air trace the path of a raindrop from where it lands on a leaf. Which way does it slide? Does it drip off the end of the leaf onto the ground, or run backwards to slide down the trunk? Why do you think many tree branches send raindrops back towards the trunk?
Wild cherry Observatory (copyright Cath Potter)
  • With your hands feel the trunk of the wild cherry – which way do the little lines go? Vertically or horizontally? Up & down, or side to side?
  • These lines are lenticels or the breathing pores of the tree. You can always tell a cherry tree from its lenticels! Practise breathing in & out like a tree!

Photographs © Cath Potter