TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 25. May, 1923. No. 293. 
THE IDENTITIES OF THE SAND CHERRIES OF 
¿ASTERN AMERICA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
Tue Sand Cherries of eastern America long passed as a highly 
variable species under the inclusive name Prunus pumila L. To be 
sure, other species, such as P. susquchanae Willd.,! P. depressa Pursh? 
and P. cuncata Raf. were proposed; but not until Bailey,* in 1892, 
took up P. cuneata did modern botanists recognize that at least 
two species were passing as P. pumila. Subsequently P. pumila 
and P. cuneata have been maintained as species, but neither in Bailey 's 
several treatments nor in Wight’s Native American Species of Prunus? 
have more than these two been recognized as occurring in eastern 
America. 
Living as a boy on the banks of the Penobscot and subsequently 
botanizing extensively from New England to Labrador, the writer 
has always been familiar with the Sand Cherry, “ Beach Plum” or 
Cerise de Sable which forms such extensive carpets, with its absolutely 
prostrate and repent rope-like branches trailing in the sands or 
gravels or over the ledges of the river-banks of New Hampshire, 
Maine, New Brunswick and Quebec, where its juicy black “ plums” 
are highly prized either raw, cooked or as the source of a rich syrup- 
like jelly. This is the shrub described by Michaux’ as Cerasus 
pumila: “Fruticulus prostratus. Fructus parvus, niger, edulis,” 
1 Willd. Enum. Pl. Hort. Berol. 519 (1809). 
2 Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 332 (1814). 
3 Raf. Ann. Nat. 11 (1820). 
4 Bailey, Cult. Native Plums and Cherries, 63 (1892). 
5 Wight, Native American Species of Prunus,—U. S. Dept. Agric. Bull. No. 179 
(1915). 
$ Michx. Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 286 (1803). 
