456 WOODY PLANTS OP MASSACHUSETTS. 



Sp. 4. The Choke Cherry. C. Virginiana. Torrey and Gray. 



A shrub or small tree, often only one or two feet high, and 

 sometimes rising to twelve or fifteen. The trunk is dark colored, 

 resembling an alder more than a common cherry tree ; it rarely 

 attains a diameter of two or three inches, and throws out a large 

 number of branches, which in May are covered with flowers, 

 and in July and August are usually bent down with a profusion 

 of fruit. The shoots and young branches are of an ashen gray 

 or olive green, growing darker after the first year. The leaves 

 are broad-obovate, oblong or elliptic, rounded or sometimes 

 heart-shaped at base, abruptly acuminate, sharply and finely 

 serrate, smooth, green, and polished above, much lighter be- 

 neath, one to four or five inches long, and of two thirds that 

 width. The footstalk is one half or three fourths of an inch 

 long, round, channelled above, with always 2, sometimes 4 or 

 more glands a little below the base of the leaf, or at equal dis- 

 tances further down. Fruit-stalks three to six inches long, 

 green, with 2 or 3 small leaves near the base. Fruit on short 

 stems, three or four lines in diameter, dark red, pleasant to the 

 taste, but astringent. It differs very much on different plants; 

 being sometimes very austere, sometimes very juicy and pleas- 

 ant, with little astringency. 



FAMILY XXIX. THE BEAN FAMILY. LEGUMINO'S^. 



JUSSIEU. 



The peculiar distinction of this family is, that its flowers are 

 butterfly-shaped, or its fruits in pods, and it often possesses both 

 these characters. By one or the other all the plants of the 

 family are known ; and the butterfly-shaped flowers are a cha- 

 racter not to be mistaken, as they are found in no other family. 

 It includes herbs, shrubs and trees. The leaves, which are 

 usually compound, rarely simple, have commonly two stipules 

 at the base, and the branches have often projecting ribs, or 



