The Native Dwarf Cherries. 261 



or bush cherry is the one which grows upon the plains from 

 Manitoba to Kansas, and westward to the mountains of Colorado 

 and Utah, and for which I now propose the name Primus 

 Besseyi,'^ in honor of Professor Charles E. Besse}^ of the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska, who has several times called attention to the 

 horticultural merits of the fruit. This fruit is in cultivation as 

 the Improved Dwarf Rocky Mountain cherry, introduced in 1892 

 by. Charles E- Pennock, of Bellvue, Colorado. f It is also the one 

 which has received attention at the Minnesota Experiment Sta- 

 tion and at other places in the Northwest. This species is a 

 dwarfer and more compact and bushy plant than the sand cherry, 

 and it has a denser and better foliage. The cherries are frequent- 

 ly as large as those of the Early Richmond and are often very 

 palatable. The fruits are variable in shape, from nearly globular 

 to oblong-pointed. It is from this species that the best results 

 are to be expected in a horticultural way ; and from the fact that 

 it grows over such a great area of the interior plains, I expect 

 that it will be found to adapt itself to our most trying soils and 

 situations. I am now completing arrangements to make a con- 

 siderable plantation of it upon certain sandy barrens in this 

 State, along with huckleberries and other novel types of fruits. 

 I do not know the full natural range of this western dwarf 

 cherry. I have it growing from seeds obtained in Manitoba, and 

 the plants are almost creeping in habit, the tips rising scarcely 



* Prunus Besseyi; distinguished from P.pmnilahy the following char- 

 acteis : spreading or diffuse bush, the branches not strict, forming a sym- 

 metrical shrub 3 or 4 ft. high, or sometimes prostrate and the highest shoots 

 rising only i8 in.; leaves spreading in habit, elliptic or elliptic-oblong, much 

 broader and thicker than in P. puniila, with more oppressed teeth, rounded 

 or abruptly contracted above, the petiole short and stout ; stipules on strong 

 shoots (see cut on title page) very prominent, green and leaf-like, often 

 longer than the petiole, serrate; fruit nearly twice larger than thatof /*. pumila, 

 on shorter and thicker peduncles, often bitterish and astringent (sour in P. 

 pumila), but in some forms palatable, black, mottled or yellowish. The 

 spreading bushy habit of the plant contrasts well with the strict and willowy 

 young growth of P. pumila. Prunus Bcsseyi is well illustrated in Fig. 2, 

 Plate I (Rocky Mountain Cherry) and in the title-piece (from Brown Co., 

 Nebraska) ; P. pumila is shown in Figs, i, 4 and 5. 



t Annals Hort. 1892, 159. 



