Vol. XVIII, pp 55-60 February 21 , 1905 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THK 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



SOME WEST a:\ierican red cherries. 



BY EDWARD L. GREENE. 



According to standard treatises upon North American general 

 sj'-stematic botany, the later as well as the earlier, we have in 

 the United States and Canada only two, or possiljly three species 

 of genuine cherry; that is red-fruiU'd kinds, })earing their flow- 

 ers in sulainiliellate or corymbose short clusters, as distinguished 

 from the choke cherries — genus Padiis — the fruits of which are 

 almost or quite black, and are borne in long cylindric racemes. 

 Our true cherries are supposed to l)e Cerasus Pennsylvanica of 

 the Atlantic slope of the continent, and C. emarginata of the 

 vaster and far more varied regions lying between the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Pacific Ocean; two species, one for the At- 

 lantic and one for the Pacific slope. 



That C. Pennsj/lvanica, one and indivisible as a species should 

 range from Newfoundland to Florida, and from New England 

 to Colorado, is a proposition not easily accepted. But that C. 

 eimirf/iruitd or any other species of tree or shrub so highly organ- 

 ized, six add occur all the way from the humid woodlands near 

 the sea at Puget Sound, down to the heated and dry hills of 

 the interior of ( 'nlifornia or the still more desert regions of south- 

 eastern California, Arizona, Utah and the Mexican border — this 

 is l)eyond the Ijelief of any botanist familiar with those extreme 

 diversities of soil, altitude, humidity and heat that mark dif- 

 ferent sections of the Pacific slope of the continent, and the 

 Great Basin. 



8— Fkoc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. XVIII, 1905. (55) ; 



