Day 183: The phrase is, "Familiarity breeds contempt," or to put it another way, "things you see frequently are easy to ignore." My attention was brought to this shrub recently by an inquiry from a friend. I'd never paid it any mind, dismissing it "as one of those flowering things which comes out at this time of year to trigger allergies," and not bothering to investigate any further. However, when put on the spot to give an identification, I realized that I honestly didn't know what it was, and that (to my way of thinking) was unforgiveable. It didn't even take a lot of digging to discover that it was Prunus cerasifera (commonly called "cherry-plum"), a garden escapee with a tendency to become invasive. Then I really started to notice it everywhere, great banks of it, fields of it, spots of it popping from forest edges. The field guides tell me it makes a small, tart fruit which can be made into jam if you can gather enough of them before the birds gobble them down. I don't recall having ever seen it in fruit, but then, I wasn't looking, was I?
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