516 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



with long thin spinescent lateral brauchlets; often spreading into thickets. Winter- 

 buds acuminate, ^q' long, with chestnut-brown scales. Bark about |' thick, dark 

 reddish brown, and slightly furrowed, the surface broken into long thick appressed 

 scales. "Wood heavy, although rather soft, not strong, light brown or red, with 

 lighter colored sapwood. The fruit is often sold in the markets of the middle and 

 southern states. 



Distribution. Widely naturalized especially in the south Atlantic and Gulf 

 states from southern Delaware and Kentucky to central Florida and eastern Texas, 

 occupying the margins of fields and other waste places near human habitations usu- 

 ally in rich soil; its origin still uncertain. 



A number of varieties derived from this species are cultivated as fruit-trees in the 

 southern states. 



5. Prunus Alleghaniensis, Port. Sloe. 



Leaves lanceolate to oblong-ovate, often long-pointed, fiuely and sharply serrate, 

 with glandular teeth, and furnished at the base with 2 large rather conspicuous 

 glands, when they unfold covered with soft pubescence, and at maturity puberulous 

 on the upper and glabrous with the exception of a few hairs in the axils of the veins, 

 or covered, especially along the broad midribs and conspicuous veins, with rufous 

 pubescence on the lower surface, rather thick and firm in texture, dark green 

 above and paler below, 2'-3^' long and |'-1^' wide; their petioles slender, grooved, 

 pubescent or puberulous, \'-^' long. Flowers appearing in May with the unfold- 

 ing of the leaves, ^' in diameter, on slender puberulous pedicels ^'-f long, in 2-4- 

 flowered umbels; calyx-tube narrowly obconie, pubescent or puberulous on the 



outer surface, the lobes ovate-oblong, rounded at the apex, scarious on the margins, 

 and coated with pale tomentum on the inner surface; petals rounded at the apex, 

 contracted at the base into short claws, turning pink in fading. Fruit ripening the 

 middle of August, on stout puberulous pedicels, subglobose or slightly oval to obo- 

 vate, y-f in diameter, with thick rather tough dark reddish purple skin covered 

 with a glaucous bloom, yellow juicy austere flesh, and a thin-walled turgid stone 

 two thirds as thick as broad, \'-^' long, pointed at the ends, ridged on the ventral, 

 and slightly grooved on the dorsal suture. 



A slender tree, occasionally 18-20 high, with a trunk sometimes 6'-8' in diameter. 



