252 CERASUS. 



flowers, its pcntlont raccmos of ])Iack fruit, aiul its ycllowisli, satiny wood. To 

 western Asia also heloni^s the laurel cherry, (Cerasus laurocerasus,) a beautiful 

 evergreen tree, known at once, from all other species of the genus, by its large, 

 smooth, yellowish-grcen, shining leaves, and its pale-green petioles, and young 

 shoots. It is less hardy than \\\e Portugal laurel cherry, (Cerasus lusitanica.) a 

 large, evergr<'en tree, growing to a height of si.vty or seventy feet, the branches of 

 which, in England, are frequently killed back by the frost, and in (Jcrmany is 

 almost everywhere treated as a green-house plant. Among the North American 

 species worthy of culture, are the black cherry-tree, (Cerasus nigra,) a tall shrub, 

 indigenous to Canada and the Alleghany 3b)untains, distinguislied for its pleas- 

 ing flowers, with purplish anthers, which, like those of the plum, appear before 

 the leaves; the Cerasus mollis, a tree from twelve to twenty feet in height, a 

 native of tlie subalpine hills, near the source of the river Columbia, as well as 

 near its mouth; and the Cerasus emarginata, known by its white flowers, glo- 

 bose, astringent fruit, and red wood, with white spots, found wild along the 

 same river. To these we will add the Cerasus borealis, Cerasus virginiana anc 

 its varieties, and the Cerasus caroliniana. 



