55. Prunus cornuta (Royle) Steudel ROSACEAE

Himalayan bird-cherry

This specimen was grown from seed collected in Nepal in 1950 by Donald Lowndes. The plant has a widespread wild distribution from Afghanistan to South-West China. It is closely related to the British bird-cherry (Prunus padus), and was first described (in the genus Cerasus) by John Forbes Royle, at one time superintendent of the Saharunpur botanic garden in Uttar Pradesh. The epithet cornutus means ‘horned’ and refers to horn-shaped galls, caused by an insect, which frequently affect the fruits of the tree in the wild.