Forest with American bird cherry

Along this road you can notice some pine groves where American bird cherry flourishes. You can recognize it by the leathery, pointed leaves and by the white flowering plumes or clusters of black currants. A freshly broken branch or leaf smells like marzipan, but you can't taste it! The American bird cherry was imported from America from 1920 and planted in many Kempische forests because of its supposedly high wood quality and soil-improving properties. But in a forest context, this species occurs mainly in shrub form and rarely grows into a tree, so the commercial use of the wood is very limited. In addition, this species acts as a pest in many forests, as can be seen everywhere here, which earned it its nickname "forest pest".

BOS+