Prunus spinosa man is found in the famous case of a 5,300-year-old human mummy discovered in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps along the Austrian-Italian border (nick-named Ötzi): among the stomach contents were sloes. A "sloe-thorn worm" used as fishing bait is mentioned in the 15th-century work, "The Treatyse of Fishing with an Angle", by Juliana Berners. The flowering of the blackthorn may have been associated with the ancient Celtic celebration of Imbolc. Prunus spinosa Prunus spinosa, called blackthorn or sloe, is a species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae. It is native to Europe, western Asia, and locally in northwest
Prunus tianshanica Prunus tianshanica Prunus tianshanica, the Tianshan cherry, is a species of cherry native to the Tianshan Mountains of Central Asia, preferring to grow at 800-1000m. "Prunus tianshanica" is a shrub reaching . The bark is grey, turning browner with age. The flowers are pink, and the dark red fruits, although small, are high in sugar and pleasant to the taste. It hybridizes naturally with "Prunus cerasifera", and the offspring produce fruit. A phylogenetic reconstruction using twelve chloroplast loci and three nuclear genes of 84 species of "Prunus" shows that "Cerasus" is indisputably a synonym (and subgenus) of "Prunus" and that