Prunus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs from the family Rosaceae, which includes plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots and almonds (collectively stonefruit).

Besides being eaten off the hand, most Prunus fruit are also commonly used in processing, such as jam production, canning, drying, and the seeds for roasting.

[10] The earliest known fossil Prunus specimens are wood, drupe, seed, and a leaf from the middle Eocene of the Princeton Chert of British Columbia, Canada.

[12] Prunus and its sister clade Maloideae (apple subfamily) has been suggested to have diverged 44.3 million years ago which is within the Lutetian, or older middle Eocene.

[a] Stockey and Wehr report: "The Eocene was a time of rapid evolution and diversification in Angiosperm families such as the Rosaceae ...."[11] The oldest fossil species is Prunus cathybrownae from the Klondike Mountain Formation.

[13] The Princeton finds are among a large number of angiosperm fossils from the Okanagan Highlands dating to the late early and middle Eocene.

Liberty Hyde Bailey said: "The numerous forms grade into each other so imperceptibly and inextricably that the genus cannot be readily broken up into species.

The word is not native Latin, but is a loan from Greek προῦνον (prounon), which is a variant of προῦμνον (proumnon),[25] origin unknown.

[26] 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.

[30] Gummosis is a nonspecific condition of stone fruits (peach, nectarine, plum, and cherry) in which gum is exuded and deposited on the bark of trees.

[31] Apiosporina morbosa is a major fungal disease in the Northern Americas, with many urban centres running black knot fungus management programs.

[32] This disease is best managed by physical removal of knot-bearing branches to prevent spore spread and immediate disposal of infected tissue.

Laetiporus gilbertsoni (commonly sulfur shelf and chicken of the woods), is a serious cubic brown rot parasite which attacks certain species of decorative red-leaf plum trees in the genus Prunus on the Pacific coast of North America.

[33][34] The genus Prunus includes the almond, the nectarine and peach, several species of apricots, cherries, and plums, all of which have cultivars developed for commercial fruit and nut production.

Pygeum, a herbal remedy containing extracts from the bark of Prunus africana, is used as to alleviate some of the discomfort caused by inflammation in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Prunus species are included in the Tasmanian Fire Service's list of low flammability plants, indicating that it is suitable for growing within a building protection zone.

[38] Although the fruits of some may be edible by humans and livestock (in addition to the ubiquitous fructivory of birds), seeds, leaves and other parts may be toxic, some highly so.

People are often encouraged to consume many fruits because they are rich in a variety of nutrients and phytochemicals that are supposedly beneficial to human health.

[42][43] Many factors can affect the levels of bioactive compounds in the different fruits of the genus Prunus, including the environment, season, processing methods, orchard operations, and postharvest management.

High levels of ROS lead to oxidative stress, which causes damage to lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.

[8][49][47] Flavonoids are a group of structurally related compounds that are arranged in a specific manner and can be found in all vascular plants on land.