152 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



is very abundant. Trunk erect, covered' with the greenish, 

 brown, polished, membranaceous bark, characteristic of the 

 cherry, with ferruginous, swelling dots. New shoots and spray 

 very slender, with bark of a lighter, reddish brown. Leaves 

 numerous, alternate or in pairs, rarely threes, at the end of the 

 branchlets, on short, small petioles, which are channelled above ; 

 narrow, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, with fine, rounded, glan- 

 dular serratures, acuminate, almost folded together, and nod- 

 ding at the end, of nearly the same light green above and be- 

 neath ; texture, thin and delicate ; secondary nerves numerous, 

 parallel ; veins finely reticulate. Flowers rather large, in nearly 

 sessile umbels. Segments of the calyx thin, rounded at the 

 end, turned back. Petals white, broad, inversely egg-shaped. 

 Fruit reddish, in very short corymbs of from 2 to 5, taking the 

 place of the leaves at the end of last year's shoots, or in the 

 axils of leaves on peduncles one inch long ; with little flesh, 

 very sour, and with a large stone. The fruit is not abundant, 

 but occasionally a few branches are found completely loaded 

 with it. 



The wood is hard, close-grained, and of a reddish color, much 

 resembling that of the common wild cherry ; but as the trees 

 are not often more than five or six inches in diameter, I know 

 not that it would be of any considerable use. As it grows in 

 the most exposed situations, it might probably grow readily, if 

 sown or planted. In some parts of Maine and New Hamp- 

 shire, this tree springs up abundantly on soil which has been 

 recently laid open to the sun in clearing, and especially after it 

 has been burnt over. There is a common opinion among the 

 ignorant, that it springs up, without seed, in consequence of 

 some action of heat upon the soil. If they would take the 

 pains to examine, they would, however, find great quantities 

 of the nuts or stones, as they are called, just beneath the surface 

 of the ground. In climbing the wild hills of those States, I 

 have repeatedly observed, in the beds of the streams, often the 

 most practicable paths, surprising numbers of the nuts of this 

 cherry, though there were no trees of the kind within a great 

 distance. 



This tree is found, according to Hooker, throughout Canada, 



