Like the Shortleaf Pine, this tree (a narrow stick about 4ft tall) sat for 25 days in a box, bare-root and dark, due to late delivery, due to no fault of the online nursery, TN Nursery. On finally opening the box on January 4th 2019, the scratch test revealed healthy green cambium, so I planted it on January 5th. It started leafing out during the first days of February, but lo and behold, it was not a Black Cherry. From the leaf shape it looked like a fig tree (which this nursery also sells), or perhaps a Mulberry (which the nursery does not sell) ..... the leaves are highly lobed and serrated....on later inspection it looked a lot like a non-native White Mulberry. On notification of the incorrect shipment, the nursery sent two "Black Cherries" - this time they looked more promising as they both had horizontal lenticels on their stems. On the same day, I received a third Black Cherry which I ordered from Amazon. Unlike the ones from the nursery which were bare-root, the one from Amazon was in a 2 gallon pot, with plenty of fine roots. I planted them all together (removing the Mulberry).
By early March, the one from Amazon had leafed out. The jury was still out as to whether this was really a Black Cherry as the leaves didn't look quite ovate enough. The other two were completely dead, the scratch-test revealing brown cambium. I did not have much success with the trees from TN Nursery: although all trees arrived looking healthy, both Shortleaf Pines and both Black Cherries died, and the upper nine-tenths of the Ashleaf Maple died. The only healthy looking plant was the White Mulberry which they sent me in error. Soon after leafing out the third "Black Cherry", from Amazon, died from the top down to the base within a few days.