446 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



The Quince Tree, Cydbnia, is always a low, crooked tree, 

 with straggling, tortuous branches. The flowers are large 

 and showy, so that it would be well worth cultivating for them 

 only; and the rich golden or orange fruit, weighing down the 

 branches in autumn, is still more beautiful. The dark leaves, 

 too, showing, when moved by the wind, their whitish, downy 

 under surface, contrast agreeably with most of the other plants 

 among which it makes its appearance in the corner of a garden. 



It springs readily from seed, but is most easily and commonly 

 propagated by layers. It may, also, be grafted upon the thorn, 

 and thus add its beauty to the useful hedge. 



It is said by De Candolle to be native in rocky places and 

 hedges in the south of Europe. — Prod. II, 638. 



FAMILY XXVIII. THE ALMOND FAMILY. AMYGDA X LEJE. 



LlNDLEY. 



Trees or shrubs, with simple, alternate leaves, white or pink 

 flowers, a calyx of 5 parts, a corolla of 5 petals, a single style, 

 and fruit a drupe, or what is usually called a stone fruit. They 

 are distinguished from the Rose and Apple Family by the fruit 

 being a drupe, by their bark yielding gum, and by the presence 

 of hydrocyanic acid in the leaves and kernel. The family in- 

 cludes the Almond tree, the Peach tree, the Apricot tree, the 

 Plum and the Cherry trees. 



The plants belonging to this family, are, with only three or 

 four exceptions, natives of cold or temperate climates of the 

 northern hemisphere. They are distinguished, in their proper- 

 ties, from those of the two preceding families, with which they 

 have many points of resemblance, and to which they are by 

 some writers united, by the presence, in the kernel and leaves, 

 of the deadly poison known by the name of prussic or hydro- 

 cyanic acid. This renders the kernels of the peach and cherry 

 so dangerous when used as food, and gives to noyau and the 



