APPLES are originally native to central Asia, with thousands of varieties having been developed over the years with varied fruit shape, color, flavor, season of ripening and resistance to pests.  The apples not only include large, edible apples but also the many, many varieties of ornamental, flowering, smaller crab-apples that readily hybridize.  Flowers are always white to light pink with five petals, and typically pollinated by bees.

PEARS are very similar to apples and bloom early, sometimes grouped together in the same genus.  Pears are native to China and the most common variety is known as the Callery or Bradford pear.  Pear has been enormously popular and was planted extensively in urban and suburban areas.  Pear readily becomes naturalized in old fields with many of these populations exhibiting thorny characteristics of their ancestral species.

CHERRIES and PLUMS include both native and introduced (Europe and Asia) species, all having five white flower petals and with all species being bee-pollinated.  Of the many, hybridized cherry only the native black cherry and alien sweet or bird cherry have flowers occurring later in the spring, appearing after the leaves have expanded. 

When I am on a job site or driving along roads and see these many early-flowering, urbanized edge trees I know that they are likely cultivated/hybridized apple, pear or cherry that have been bird or wind disseminated, having come from ornamental, residential landscape trees.  The only way to identify these trees any better than apple, pear or cherry/plum is to take a close look at the flower, fruit, buds, leaves and/or bark.  If anybody asks, especially very early in the spring, I just say Malus, Pyrus, Prunus.