You must have two varieties or cultivars for pollination.
Mine were loaded last year - and very good to eat!
Another type of dogwood might pollinate it if they are in bloom at the same time.
Good Luck, LJ

I'm going to bump this query up , because I have a cornelian cherry that has born a heavy crop of fruit every year , and there is absolutely no other anywhere within miles of where we live !!!!
Where I bought it from ( I sent for it ), said nothing about it needing a pollinator , and it doesn't !
Also , ours blooms so early , there are no pollinating insects out , that I know of .
Mine is not a named variety .
Perhaps a summer drouth will cause the fruit to fall ??

I believe cherry trees need a good freeze to produce fruit.

thanks for everyone's advice. I think that you are on to something, gardeningangel. we had anomalously high (like really really high, very very wet) rainfall in April this year. and the tree set more fruit than it ever has. since then I've been irrigating it more than I have in the past and I think the fruits are going to ripen...... maybe water is the key.

Two words...cold requirement. At least that's what I've been told. They don't set fruit without cold for a certain number of days. We get sporatic fruit set here in our climate as we are borderline for the cold they need. You could try contacting Northwoods Nursery in Washington State or One Green World here in Oregon to see if they have information on them. The other option would be the fruit & orchard forum. Someones bound to know the answer there.

Corneliancherry is not really even a cherry - it's a dogwood(Cornus mas), producing an edible fruit. Can't comment on chill hours, but I don't believe they need cross-pollination in order to set fruit, though fruit set *may* be heavier with a companion planted nearby.

Gardeningangel, could you please let me know where you purchased your Cornelian Cherry tree? It doesn't seem to be available in local northern Calif. nurseries.
Thank you!

I got mine at Orchard Nursery in Lafayette, CA. Raintree has them mailorder. www.raintreenursery.com

I have the vairety "Elegans" or Elegant I've forgotten which. I have it written down somewhere but it has bloomed for 4 years and has produced no fruit. I have two of the same variety and the nursery I ordered it from said it needed a different variety to pollinate but they only had the one. This fall I got a catalog from another nursery that had three different cultivars or varieties. I hope to order one in the spring. It's Hidden Springs Nursery in Cookeville, TN.

Don't be discouraged if your cornelian cherry flowers without fruiting for a few years. They have the habit of producing only male flowers when young, but then will produce perfect (male/female) flowers when they're older. In fact, the species name Cornus mas means "male dogwood"! (This info is from Lee Reich's book "Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention," which I hear is coming out in a new edition this spring -- great news!)

thanks for this info, Dabbler Carol! I checked this book out of the library about 6 or 7 years ago and guess I didn't remember allll the details I should have about cornelian cherry! I read about medlars in there, planted a medlar tree and had my first substantial crop this fall. it's exciting! I will be patient and wait for my cornelian cherry to follow suit.

Thank you Carol, for the encouraging news! I too checked that book out of the library and didn't remember that information:-)

Once your trees get around to cherrying, please let me know what you think of the flavor. I am strongly considering planting some myself, and would like a variety that lives up to the description of tasting a good deal like a pie cherry.

I'm also wondering whether the fruit of any of the cultivars would lend itself to being pitted with a cherry pitter. That sure would increase the number of cornelian-cherry cobblers that would get baked around here!

I have a cornelian cherry dogwood that is probably around 50 or 60 years old. It was a volunteer that popped up in the backyard of our 100+ year old house many many years ago, according to the previous owners.

It took me forever to ID it three years ago because nobody around here had ever seen it before! :) It is a wonderful multi-stemmed tree...VERY full and growing perfectly symmetrical...flowers fabulously and sets a LOT of fruit.

The fruit is pretty sour and almost...um..."dry" for lack of a better word. Dry like white wine (does that make sense?).

The robins absolutely gobble them up! I imagine other birds do, as well, but the squirrels never touch them. Maybe because they're spoiled w/ peanut butter and crackers. hehe

The fruit is pretty meaty, though oval shaped, not round. Not sure how a pitter would work on them...?

Fruit is, indeed, tart & astringent until dead ripe - they almost look rotten - dark and beginning to shrivel a little - before they're ready. My kids & I like them, but most folks I've shared 'em with don't care for them especially.
Most common description I've heard is that they taste like "cranberry-flavored cardboard".
Certainly a nice ornamental tree in its own right, the birds love 'em - and you may, as well, but it's not a tree to plant if you're really anticipating anything like a real 'pie cherry'.

I definitely agree with the "cranberry-flavored cardboard" description above. The berries are very tart unless they are starting to rot, then they get softer and slightly sweeter. I love growing it, because I get tired of the same supermarket food.

Honestly, a Cornelian cherry pie is the best cherry pie in the world. With vanilla ice cream, it's out of this world. I think of this fruit as the rhubarb of the "cherry" world. The taste is quite distinct and definitely not cranberry. Once you add sugar, the fruit is transformed. To make pie filling, I add sugar, red wine, a bit of lemon juice, touch of salt, ground black pepper, and some ground cloves. I use a bit of flour for thickener. People are skeptical when I extol the virtues of this pie, but once they've tried it, they're believers. Cornus mas is a huge seller in the Caucasus and Turkey, where it's routinely turned into jam (pits left in the fruit) and used to sweeten tea, especially when you have a cold or flu. It's a pain to pit it; a cherry pitter really doesn't do the job. I was in Tbilisi when I discovered the cherries years ago and pitted them while I watched the Clinton impeachment proceedings on television. I used a paperclip (and still do) to preserve as much of the whole, soft, very ripe fruit as I could. A friend in the Caucasus gently rolls the cherries over a grater to get the fruit off (she don't make pies with it; mine was the first she tried). Occasionally, for pie, I have a "pitting party": invite seven friends over, and in one hour, you will have the amount of pitted cherries it would have taken you eight hours to pit by yourself. As a reward, all pitters get a piece of pie. I boil the leftover pits to remove the clinging bits of fruit, which results in a strong Cornelian cherry juice that I turn into sorbet, using the same ingredients (sans flour) I use for the pie filling. A friend from New York told me I could make a fortune selling the sorbet there. (Sure, if someone invents a pitter.) The fruit also makes a wonderful sauce--delicious on chicken or ice cream or on anything else you would flavor with cherry. This cherry would make an excellent liqueur, I think.

"I think of this fruit as the rhubarb of the "cherry" world.... I add sugar, red wine, a bit of lemon juice, touch of salt, ground black pepper, and some ground cloves. I use a bit of flour for thickener."

Do you use the same recipe for rhubarb pie? My own rhubarb pies are far simpler, just the rhubarb, a moderate amount of sweetener, and some thickener. I wonder if I'd like C. mas pie made that way?