There are 2~3 street trees with purple leaves & black fruits on Manitoba Street between West 21~22 Ave. The small fruit is less than 1.0 cm and tasted astringent.
Sec. Padus cherry, either P. padus or P. virginiana - purple forms of both species have been selected and dispersed.
I used to have music lessons right there! I am pretty sure they are the latter, Prunus virginiana 'Schubert'. I can't look up my photos right now to see if I photographed the label or what made me think I'm so sure of this. I know I have photos with some green leaves and dark purple new leaves. And some flower photos too. I will be able to put my desk back in about two weeks, can look at photos on my desktop then.
I have photos with some green leaves and dark purple new leaves It would be the other way around. As in leaves emerging green, then turning purple.
Not convinced on that - at leaf-out, red pigments usually appear a bit earlier than chlorophyll, so they start out bright red / pinkish, then turn dark purple as the chlorophyll develops fully.
I'm sure I have photos of these individuals. You'll have to wait till I'm back on my desktop, though.
I remembered that I saved some photos in a Dropbox file where I am collecting candidates for updates to the Vancouver Trees app, so I was able to access them. I didn't save a label in that file, but the city trees database has them as P. virginiana 'Schubert'. Dates are in the photo names. These are the same group of trees, the first three photos May 2014; the other two June 2015. It looks like May leaves are all green; by June, those leaves have turned purple, but new leaves still come in green. I wasn't aware that I would get to confused these with P. padus 'Berg'. How would I distinguish them?
Yes, green then purple. Completely counter intuitive. And yes, I got it wrong in Vancouver Trees. I will correct for the next iteration (whatever that is). Prunus padus (European/Eurasian bird cherry) and P. virginiana (choke cherry) are similar. Prunus padus (especially the Asian P. padus var. commutata) is more naturally arborescent with slightly narrower leaves and larger flowers. There are two common manifestations of P. padus in Vancouver. 'Colorata' has purple shoots, the leaves emerging coppery-purple then fading to green but with purplish-grey-green undersides (Jacobsen describes the tree perfectly as appearing "murky green") and with pink flowers. The other is var. commutata which is proliferating quietly from bird-distributed seed at local woodland margins. The original source of these seedlings is probably the cultivar 'Watereri' (which is an impressive tree with large flowers), which was briefly offered locally in the 1970s. But note that 'Colorata' and apparently, 'Berg' are somewhat shrubbier than the typical cultivated or seedling green-leaved P. padus. If in doubt, the inside of the hypanthium (floral tube) is pubescent in P. padus and glabrous (hairless) in P. virginiana. There are very few images of 'Berg' online, suggesting that it is rare (and I have never seen it or seen it offered in Vancouver). In any case, I would doubt that the depth of colour would equal that of 'Schubert', which is sometimes an impossible purple-black.
I gave 'Berg' and 'Schubert' as examples of the phenomenon only, and not as suggestions for the photographed planting. Speaking of Jacobson he (1996) says 'Berg' is rare, reddish purple and globular. Otherwise P. padus Merlot ('Drietree') and P. padus Summer Glow are apparently in production in Oregon. http://nurseryguide.com/Find_Plants/Search?q=padus
Wow, huge flowers, seemingly so in one ph0to anyway. I think I'd have to be looking for the floral tube hairs to distinguish that from 'Shubert'. Those browser queries can be so misleading. One "hit" I clicked on was a 'Kanzan' cherry, with unusual dark branches.
Yes, helpful. Thank you. My rambling reply only meant to show how closely related are P. padus and P. virginiana (and my mea culpa for getting the green to purple sequence wrong in Vancouver Trees). Stone fruits are not generally allowed into Canada (without virus free certification), so most American selections post 1970s are unavailable here.
Other ways to tell the two species apart appear in this key, where they are species #7 and #8: www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=126865
