1920] SARGENT, NOTES ON NORTH AMERICAN TREES. VII 113 



generally true, but in western Florida, in the neighborhood of Selma, Dal- 

 las County, Alabama, and of Starkville and Jackson, Mississippi, and near 

 New Orleans, Louisiana, trees which I cannot otherwise distinguish from 

 Prunus americana grow with a single stem and show no tendency to pro- 

 duce plants from the roots. When better known it is possible that these 

 trees may prove distinct enough from the northern tree to make it possi- 

 ble to consider them specifically distinct. Unfortunately seedlings of the 

 Florida and Alabama trees raised at the Arboretum have not proved hardy, 

 and it will not be possible to give them here the sustained observations nec- 

 essary for the proper understanding of any species of Plum-tree. One of 

 the Florida Plum-trees, however, seems distinct enough to be considered a 

 variety, for which I suggest the name of 



Prunus americana var. floridana, n. var. 



thinner finely serrate leaves and purpl 



fruit. 



Lea\ 



pointed, acute or acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate or 

 rounded at base, and finely often doubly serrate with short apiculate teeth, 

 when they unfold tinged w^ith red and slightly pubescent, and at maturity 

 thin, dull dark green on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, 6-8 

 cm. long and 3.5-5 cm. wide, with a slender midrib and primary veins 

 sparingly villose on the lower side; petioles slender, pubescent or puberu- 

 lous, eglandular, 7-12 mm. in length; stipules linear, puberulous, 6 or 7 mm. 

 long, caducous. Flowers opening from the middle to the end of March, 

 2 cm. in diameter, on slender glabrous pedicels tinged with red and 1.7-2 

 cm. in length, in 2- or 3-flowered short-stalked umbels; calyx glabrous, red, 

 the lobes narrow-acuminate, entire or glandular serrate toward the apex and 

 usually ciliate on the margins, puberulous on the outer surface, villose- 

 pubescent on the inner surface; petals oblong-obovate, rounded at apex, 

 contracted below into a narrow claw, 7 or 8 ram. wide; filaments glabrous, 



and style glabrous. Fruit short-oblong, 

 rounded at ends, 2.5 cm. long and 2-2.2 cm. in diameter, red becoming 

 purple when fully ripe, with a thin skin, thick sweet flesh and an oblong 

 flattened stone pointed at ends, acutely ridged on the ventral suture, ob- 

 scurely grooved on the dorsal suture, 1.7-1.8 cm. long, 1.3-1.4 cm, wide, 

 and 7 or 8 mm. thick. 



A small tree without suckers from the roots, with pale gray bark and 

 slender glabrous red-brown branchlets, 



Florida. Low rich woods in the neighborhood of St. Marks, Wakulla County, 

 common; T, G, Harbison (No. 30 = 1427, type), March 30, 1914, September 17, 1919; 

 No. 1207, September 25, 1913. 



Pnmus mexicana S. Wats. The common **'Big-tree" Plum of Texas 



which I described as Prunus arJcansana (Trees and Shrubs, ii. 157, t. 165 

 [1911]) has been probably correctly referred to Sereno Watson's P. mexu 

 carta (in Proc. Am. Acad. xvii. 352 [1882]), based on a fragmentary spbci- 



ovary 



