Maxim.
Description
Prunus campanulata is an East Asian cherry distributed across southern China, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong, with outlying records reaching the central Himalaya in Nepal, India and Vietnam; it is also widely cultivated and naturalised in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Americas, accounting for the broad GBIF footprint of nearly 1,900 occurrences. In its native range it occupies montane broad-leaved and mixed forest, forest margins and ravines, typically between 500 and 2,500 m. The plant photographed near Trisuli in central Nepal at about 2,400 m in October represents the species at the higher end of its Himalayan range, in cool, humid temperate forest on well-drained slopes.
It is a deciduous tree or large shrub reaching 3-8 m, with glabrous, reddish-brown twigs and conspicuous lenticels. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic-oblong, 4-10 cm long, acuminate, with a sharply biserrate margin and glandular petioles. The flowers, borne in fascicles of 2-4 before or with the young leaves, are pendent and bell-shaped (campanulate), 1-2 cm across, with a deep rose-pink to carmine urceolate hypanthium and rounded, notched petals enclosed by a persistent reddish calyx. The fruit is a small ovoid drupe, ripening dark red to purplish-black and enclosing a single stone.
The distinctive nodding, deeply coloured campanulate flowers and early flowering season distinguish P. campanulata within subgenus Cerasus, where it is placed in section Pseudocerasus. Its early bloom makes it an important nectar source for overwintering birds and early insects, and the drupes are bird-dispersed. The species is horticulturally prized as the Taiwan or bellflower cherry and is a parent in numerous ornamental hybrids; its wide naturalisation reflects this cultivation, and it is locally regarded as a minor invasive in parts of the southern hemisphere. It is not considered threatened.
Author: Maxim. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Bhutan, Kew Bulletin monograph of Prunus subgen. Cerasus