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 maximowiczii leaves of "P. maximowiczii" are green; and those from the fruit, a dark grey to green. Chemically, amygdalin and prunasin, the derivatives of which produce prussic acid as well as Genistein can be extracted from "P. maximowiczii". Prunus maximowiczii Prunus maximowiczii, known as Korean cherry, Korean mountain cherry, or Miyama cherry, is a small (about 7.5 m), fruiting cherry tree that can be found growing wild in northeastern Asia and Eurasia. The species was first described in 1857 by Franz Josef Ruprecht. It was treated in the genus "Cerasus" (now generally accepted as a subgenus of "Prunus") by Vladimir Leontyevich