please help identify this flowering tree

Joey Meister

these trees grow along the railroad tracks in ditches, near where we live, it had suckers coming up around it so i dug up one of the suckers to plant in the yard, they are really pretty the stems almost covered by white flowers in the spring, it has a really fast rate of growth and grew almost 3 feet the second year after being transplanted, and i notice some of the branches turn into big sharp thorn like appendages on the bottom of the trunk, although it flowers, i never see fruit on the wild trees in the ditch. i would like to know what it is and how big it gets, the ones in the ditch are always getting cut down or sprayed with something to kill them so i'm not sure how big they would actually grow.

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Brent Ferris

Looks like a member of the Prunus family - maybe a pin or choke cherry or plum. Many of the wild varieties had small fruit, and when they were domesticated to enhance fruit production, the thorns were either lost with the increasing fruit size, or thornless varieties were chosen to propagate the species. If it is one of these 3, figure on 25 to 30 ft mature height, although the cherries can sometimes grow taller.

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Jamie Myers

Prunus spinosa