Prunus and Pliny uses "prūnus silvestris" to mean the blackthorn. The word is not native Latin, but is a loan from Greek προῦνον ("prounon"), which is a variant of προῦμνον ("proumnon"), origin unknown. The tree is προύμνη ("proumnē"). Most dictionaries follow Hoffman, "Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Griechischen", in making some form of the word a loan from a pre-Greek language of Asia Minor, related to Phrygian. The first use of "Prunus" as a genus name was by Carl Linnaeus in "Hortus Cliffortianus" of 1737, which went on to become "Species Plantarum". In that work, Linnaeus attributes the word to "Varr.", who it
Prunus avium parent species of "Prunus cerasus" (sour cherry), by way of ancient crosses between it and "Prunus fruticosa" (dwarf cherry) in the areas where the two species overlap. All three species can breed with one another. "Prunus cerasus" is now a species in its own right, having developed beyond a hybrid and stabilised. Pliny distinguishes between "Prunus", the plum fruit, and "Cerasus", the cherry fruit. Already in Pliny quite a number of cultivars are cited, some possibly species or varieties, Aproniana, Lutatia, Caeciliana, and so on. Pliny grades them by flavour, including dulcis ("sweet") and acer ("sharp"). and goes so far