1923] Long,—Occurrence of Prunus Padus in America 171 
The leaves of P. Padus are mostly obovate and very like those of 
P. virginiana, but the margins are not so sharply serrate. They 
are of course quite different from the thick, oval, blunt-toothed 
leaves of P. serotina. In some strains the flowers and the racemes 
are rather similar to those of P. virginiana and P. serotina but the 
form most commonly met bears very handsome elongated and often 
drooping racemes of large-petaled blossoms, strikingly different from 
its near relatives, and in fact more closely resembling those of an 
Amelanchier. 'The racemes are characteristically more loosely 
flowered than in either of the other species, and the pedicels are 
longer. The flowering season is apparently slightly earlier than 
that of P. virginiana and about a week or ten days earlier than in 
P. serotina—as P. Padus is passing out of bloom, the first flowers of 
P. serotina are opening. The cherry is small, round, dark reddish- 
black and shining, with thin, greenish pulp. "The stone is roughened 
with irregularly disposed projections, this character at once differenti- 
ating the species from its allies, which have smooth stones. The 
fruit varies in quality, as might be expected, but one rarely meets any 
that he cares to sample a second time. The best that may be said 
of this cherry is that some strains are perhaps less astringent and 
nauseating than others. The fruit ripens about three weeks earlier 
than P. virginiana and a month before P. serotina. Frequently fruit 
sets plentifully, especially on individuals growing in the open or on 
the borders of woods and thickets. The birds apparently eat it as 
greedily as they do all other cherries, and are probably in large meas- 
ure responsible for the dissemination of the seed. A tree seen earlier 
in the season and known to be well fruited may often be found almost 
stripped of cherries on being visited when the fruit is ripe. 
The station first known to me lies in Lansdowne, which is in Dela- 
ware County just outside the Philadelphia city limits to the westward. 
More precisely, it is near Lansdowne Avenue and Pennock Terrace, 
in a rich wooded gully adjacent to Darby Creek. The early years 
of my botanizing made me acquainted with this plant—long before 
- Prunus Padus was a familiar name to me, and even before P. virginiana 
had been encountered. So it is almost superfluous to note my 
original idea of its identity—and possibly the close affinity of these 
two species and the absence of the Old World one from our manuals 
is sufficient excuse. After more than fifteen years the station was 
recently revisited. If one’s recollection that far back can be trusted, 
