24 



THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



Formosa, Siam and Japan with its islands. Happily these Chinese cher- 

 ries are being introduced, but a few at a time, it is true, to Europe and 

 America and it can hardly be otherwise than that they will enrich horti- 

 culture as they are domesticated, hybridized or used as a consort upon 

 which to grow the cherries now known to cultivation. In particular, it 

 may be expected that cherries for the cold north and the bleak plains of 

 our continent will be evolved from the Asiatic species better suited to 

 these regions than the cultivated cherries we now grow. 



The number and diversity of the species of cherries which this brief 

 review of Cerasus shows to exist suggest that our cultivated cherry flora 

 is but begun. There can be no question but that others of these species 

 than the few that have been domesticated will yield to improvement under 

 cultivation and furnish refreshing fruits. It is just as certain that new 

 types, as valuable perhaps as the hybrid Diikes we now have, can be 

 produced through hybridization. In North America, we have no satis- 

 factory stock for cultivated Sweet and Sour Cherries. Both of the stocks 

 now commonly used, the Mazzard and the Mahaleb, as we shall see, have 

 weaknesses that unfit them for general use. Surely out of the great num- 

 ber of forms we have just listed a better stock than either of the two 

 named can be found. No doubt, too, many of these new species, even 

 though they do not furnish food, will prove valuable timber or ornamental 

 trees. 



We are ready now for a more detailed discussion of the cultivated 

 species of cherries. 



PRUNUS CERASUS Linnaeus. 



I. Linnaeus Spec. PI. 474. 1753. 



P. austera. 2, Ehrhart Beitr. 5: 160. 1790. 



P. acida. 3. Ehrhart I. c. 1790. 



P. aestiva. 4. Salisbury Prodr. 356. 1796. 



P. plena. 5. Poiret, in Lamarck Enc. ilHh. Bot. 5:671. 1804. 



P. rosea. 6. Poiret, in Lamarck /. c. 1804. 



P. Juliana. 7. Reichenbach Fl. Germ. Exc. 643. 1832, not Poiret in Lamarck, 1805. 



P. hortensis. 8. Persoon Sym. PI. 2:34. 1807. 



P. Marasca. 9. Reichenbach Fl. Germ. Exc. 644. 1832. 



P. oxycarpa. 10. Bechstein Forst. Bot. 5:424. 1843. 



P. vulgaris. 11. Schur Entim. PI. Transsih. 954. 1866. 



Cerasus vulgaris . 12. Miller Gard. Diet. ed. 8: No. i. 1768. 



C. hortenses. 13. Miller /. c. No. 3. 1768. 



C. acida. 14. Borkhausen, in Roemer Arch. Bot. i: 11, 38. 1796. 



C. austera. 15. Borkhausen, in Roemer /. c. 1796. 



C. Caproniana. 16. De Candolle Fl. Fran. ed. 3, 4:842. 1805. 



C. nicotianaefoUa. 17. Hort. ex De Candolle Prodr. 2:536. 1825. 



