Centenary College Arboretum: Laurel Cherry (Prunus caroliniana)

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Laurel Cherry (Prunus caroliniana)

Prunus is a famous, useful, and diverse genus. When you're "kind of a big deal," you typically have more problems come your way.

Here we see sap leaking from regularly-spaced wounds on the trunk of this laurel cherry (Prunus caroliniana).

This is likely the early stages of a condition arborists call "gummosis." The French botanist Auguste Trécul (1818-1896) was first to note, circa 1860, that a condition resulting in a superabundance of sap around a pathological zone could result from a variety of maladies. That name refers to the liquefaction of a tree's inner wood material and its leaking from wounds in the tree. This gummosis, or Gummibildung and even Gummifluss, as the Germans call it, can help protect a tree by isolating infected wood between hardened, protective plates. As it is really more of a physiological response than a disease itself, there is no singular cause of gummosis; it can result from insect damage, climatological stress, or infection by bacteria and fungi.

Here we can see an old wound and the gummosis above it.

Back in June, this tree was placed on the docket for removal, primarily because of its significant lean. You can read that post here. The gummosis is not the reason for removal, but it did speed up the process. Enquiring minds want to know―what does the inner bark look like given the external gumminess? Is there a bug infestation or is it rotting? So the Faustian spirit urges, "Cut it down! Let's find out!"

We are fortunate to have a volunteer ready to take its place. We'll stake that one and try to avoid the leaning tower of laurel.

In order to avoid destroying the smaller laurel cherry at the base, we first took out all the branches. Cutting most of the way through allowed us to extract the plant material slowly.

Here the tree has been separated into trunk and branches for easier disposal.

Here we can see the damage at the base of the trunk, which probably gave rise to the gummosis. Our working theory is that this damage was isolated and more-or-less healed by the tree. Later attacks by bugs or sapsuckers, in a vertical line from this damage, resulted in the tree leaking sap due to its proximity to the old wound.

The trunk ought to be round—and a crescent-shaped portion is clearly missing. What we don't see here is a lot of rotten material, a bug infestation, fungal infection, or other bad signs. The tree was, at least right now, apparently healthy despite the manifestation of gummosis. Nevertheless, we stand by the decision we made to cut it down, in large part due to the uncorrectable lean. In an unexpected turn, this newly cut lumber produced an aroma which corresponded precisely to a cherry soda.