A tree of blossom and fruit. The cherry tree was brought to New Zealand by early European settlers, planted in orchards and gardens. Now it grows wild in old orchards, along hedgerows, in waste places, a cloud of white or pink in the spring landscape. The cherry tree is tall, reaching up to twenty-five metres in height, with a conical crown and reddish-brown bark. The leaves are oval, toothed, and arranged alternately along the branches. They are dark green and glossy, turning yellow or red in autumn. The flowers are the story – white or pink, five-petalled, appearing in spring before the leaves. The tree is a cloud of colour, a sign that winter is ending. The fruit is the prize – the cherry, red and sweet, dark and juicy, the taste of summer. In New Zealand, cherry trees have escaped from cultivation. They grow wild in cooler regions, in Central Otago, in the hills of Canterbury, in the corners of old farms. These wild trees are living history, preserving varieties that are no longer grown commercially. A gnarled old cherry tree in an abandoned orchard might be seventy years old, its fruit still sweet, its blossoms still beautiful. The wood of the cherry tree is hard, dense, and richly coloured. It was used for furniture, for carving, for musical instruments. The fruit was eaten fresh, bottled, or made into preserves. The cherry tree was a tree of beauty and utility, a tree of the orchard and the garden. To see an old cherry tree in flower is to see a piece of history. The settlers who planted it are gone, but the tree remains. It blossoms every spring, fruits every summer, drops its leaves every autumn. It does not know that it is a stranger here. It just grows, and blooms, and feeds the birds. The cherry tree is not a native. It is not endemic. It is an immigrant, a settler, a tree that made a new home in a new land. It has been here for two hundred years. It will be here as long as the winters are cold enough.