RETROSPECTIVE. — CHERRIES, &c. 



BY W. R. PRINCE, FLUSHING, L. I 



ETROSPECTIVE. — In your August number, page 386, there 

 are notes on the following subjects, to which I will re- 

 spond. 



Tamarind. — It is not true, that this tree is growing 

 and producing fruit in Virginia. It is so tender that it 

 would not survive there during even the mildest month 

 of one of their mildest winters. Some other tree must 

 have been thus misnamed, and described. 



Weigelia Amahilis. — The flowers do greatly assimilate 

 to the rosea. The foliage is, however, larger and hand- 

 somer, and the growth much more vigorous than that species. Weigelia Splendens 

 has pale, yellow flowers, produced in long racemes. 



Walsh's Cherry. — I tested this cherry, and the fruit is identical with the " Black 

 Bigarreau of Savoy," and in the whole catalogue of cherries there is not one 

 variety that bears any similitude to this, except the " Tradescant's Black," and that 

 is readily distinguishable by the growth of the tree, as well as the fruit. It was 

 imported by me about the year 1824, from the Nursery at Tonnelle in the Mediter- 

 ranean, France, afterwards from the Nursery at Milan, Italy. In their catalogues 

 now before me, it is called " Bigarreau noir de Savoie." It is a very large round 

 black cherry, of fine appearance, and strikingly distinct from every other variety 

 known among us, and no cherry like it could have been produced from any other 

 but itself. Mr. Walker asks — "If Mr. Walsh's cherry is not a seedling, why have 

 we not in 15 or 20 years found it imported from Europe?" The answer is very 

 simple and explicit. The Black Bigarreau of Savoy Cherry is not found in any 

 Belgian, or English, or Paris, or Angers, or Orleans Nursery Catalogue, and it is 

 from these that Americans make their selections. It is emphatically an Italian 

 variety, and seems to be but little known, except in that country, and in that part 

 of Mediterranean France close bordering thereto. I have never seen it named in 

 but two French Catalogues, both of that region. They know nothing about this 

 cherry at Paris or London. My specimen tree on mahaleh is now 30 feet high. 

 I will now refer to another most important cherry from the same region. 



Large Red Frool, or Bigarreau de Prool a gros fruit. — This is the largest of all 

 cherries, and one of the very finest ; the tree is of great vigour, with large, some- 

 what pendulous foliage. It was imported at the same time as the preceding, and 

 my specimen tree on Mahaleb is 35 feet high. I have several times stated 



