THE CAPULIN CHERRY 



A Superior Form of the Northern Black Cherry Developed in the Highlands 



of Tropical America 



Wilson Popenoe 



Agricultural Explorer, United States Department of Agriculture 



AND 



Abelardo Pachano 

 Quinta Normal de Agricultura, Ambato, Ecuador 



THE improvement of our native 

 fruits was begun shortly after the 

 colonization of North America by 

 Europeans. At first conducted in a 

 somewhat haphazard manner, more 

 recently in a very systematic way, the 

 total result has been the production of 

 many excellent varieties and hybrids, of 

 which notable examples are to be 

 found among the grapes, plums, and 

 strawberries. 



Our horticulturists, however, seem to 

 have overlooked the wild black cherry, 

 Pruntis serotina Ehrh. Not so the 

 aboriginal inhabitants of Mexico and 

 certain other parts of tropical America, 

 who have, on a number of high pla- 

 teaus, cultivated this tree for centuries. 

 They have so changed the character 

 of its fruit that horticulturists familiar 

 with it in the United States would 

 scarcely recognize the capulin of Ecua- 

 dor as belonging to the same species. 

 Botanists, even, have considered it as 

 distinct until very recent years, when 

 closer study has served to show that it 

 differs only in those characters which 

 may be changed by cultivation. Its 

 fruit, instead of being small, bitter, and 

 having very scanty flesh, is sometimes 

 the size of a Bigarreau cherry and 

 much resembles the latter in flavor, 

 except that there is usually a trace of 

 bitterness in the skin. This charac- 

 teristic, in the best varieties, is not so 

 pronounced as to be objectionable. 



The capulin is therefore a fruit 

 worthy of serious attention in the 

 United States as well as in other 

 countries. It can be cultivated in 

 many regions where European cherries 

 are not successful, and it is tremen- 



dously productive. By means of vege- 

 tative propagation, which has never 

 been practiced in tropical America 

 (with the exception of a few sporadic 

 instances in very recent years) it will 

 be possible to establish as horticultural 

 varieties the best seedling forms which 

 have been developed, and perhaps to 

 bring about further improvement. For 

 it must be remembered that the process 

 which has been employed in tropical 

 America has been one of semiconscious 

 selection, and that when a superior 

 seedling appeared there was no means 

 of perpetuating its good qualities. 

 Improvement has therefore been slow, 

 and has come about through raising the 

 level of the whole species, instead of 

 through repeated selection of superior 

 individuals, followed by vegetative 

 propagation. 



HISTORY and distribution 



As an indigenous species, Prunus 

 serotina is distributed from Nova 

 Scotia westward to the northern shore 

 of Lake Superior, thence southward 

 to Florida, thence Northwestward to 

 the Dakotas, eastern Nebraska and 

 Kansas, thence through western Texas, 

 southern New Mexico and Arizona into 

 Mexico and probably Central America. 

 It has generally been considered to be 

 indigenous as far south as Colombia 

 and Peru, but we are of the opinion 

 that it has become naturalized in those 

 countries in comparatively recent 

 times. Father Bernabe Cobo, in his 

 "Historia del Nuevo Mundo," one of 

 the classic works on the natural his- 

 tory of the Spanish colonies in the New 

 World, wrote in 1653: "This tree 



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