56 Greene — Some West American Red Cherries. 



There was published in Hookers' Flora Boreali- Americana, 

 some seventy years since, two new cherries from the Coliimlna 

 River, C. emarginata and C. mollk. Some twenty years later 

 Dr. Kellogg, of San Francisco, assuming the cherry-bush of the 

 San Francisco Bay region to be the C. emarginata of Douglas, 

 named as new the red cherry just then discovered to be indigen- 

 ous to middle elevations of the great Sierra Nevada. Precisely 

 what Dr. Kelloggs' C. gJandulosa was, one can not determine, 

 no fewer than four species of the genus Ijeing now recognizable 

 as inhabiting the Sierras of middle California ; but that is un- 

 important, since the name lie assigned his species does not 

 hold. 



In 1891, having seen the red-cherry trees and shrults of the 

 Columbia, and studied them on their native soil, I was able to 

 pi^rceive that the shrul» of the hills of middle western California 

 could not l)e referred to either of the Columl)ian species, and I 

 described it in the Flora Franciscana as new, under the name 

 C. Calif arnica. 



In 1903 there were sent in from the MogoUon Mountains of 

 southern New Mexico, some branches with good foliage and ripe 

 fruits of a cherry the investigation of which has led me to ex- 

 amine with care a large amount of herbarium material of these 

 western red cherries lying in the National Herbarium, all of it 

 under the name of C. emarginata. 



Noticing in the herbarium even, what 1 had long since ob- 

 served in the western field, considerable differences as to the 

 size and outline of the drupes, I proceeded to extract and cleanse 

 tlie nuclei or stones of these from different regions, finding to 

 my great surprise that in these there seemed to reside good 

 specific characters. I say to my surprise, because throughout 

 the genus Cerasus as heretofore known, the stones are smootli 

 and nearly or quite orbicular, hence not at all available for pur- 

 poses of specfic diagnosis. How very different the case is here, 

 in these West American cherries, the descriptions following 

 will show. 



Cerasus crenulata sp. nov. 



Shrub with rather rigid copiously leafy branches puberulent the first 

 and second seasons, later glabrous, grayish ; leaves elongated, seldom with 

 any hint of the obovate, on fruiting branches oblong or elliptic-oblong, 



