Wild cherry (Prunus avium), commonly called sweet cherry, bird cherry, orgean, is a species of cherry native to Europe, and western Asia. This species are in the rose family (Rosaceae), and all parts of the plant except for the ripe fruit are slightly toxic, containing cyanogenic glycosides. Prunus avium is a deciduous tree growing to 15–32 m tall, with a trunk up to 1.5 m in diameter. Young trees show strong apical dominance with a straight trunk and symmetrical conical crown, becoming rounded to irregular on old trees. The bark is smooth purplish-brown. The leaves are alternate, 7–14 cm long and 4–7 cm broad. In autumn, the leaves turn orange, pink or red before falling. The flowers are produced in early spring at the same time as the new leaves. The fruit is a drupe 1–2 cm in diameter, bright red to dark purple when mature in midsummer, edible, variably sweet to somewhat astringent and bitter to eat fresh. Each fruit contains a single hard-shelled stone 8–12 mm long, 7–10 mm wide. The fruit are readily eaten by numerous kinds of birds and mammals, which digest the fruit flesh and disperse the seeds in their droppings. The sweet cherry is one of the two cherry species which supply most of the world's commercial cultivars of edible cherry.

 

It is often cultivated as a flowering tree. Because of the size of the tree, it is often used in parkland, and less often as a street or garden tree.

The hard, reddish-brown wood (cherry wood) is valued as a hardwood for woodturning, and making cabinets and musical instruments. The gum from bark wounds is aromatic and can be chewed as a substitute for chewing gum. Medicine can be prepared from the stalks of the drupes that is astringent, antitussive, and diuretic.