52 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
between a bush and a small tree, partaking of the 
nature of both. It has a red bark, drooping branches, 
and erect, coarsely-toothed dark-green leaves, which 
appear with the flowers or just before them. These 
flowers are very like those of the Blackthorn, but 
larger, and the notched petals are less widely spread. 
They stand erect on long stalks, either singly or in 
bunches (wmbels) of two to four. The little red 
cherries are round, and their juice very acid. 
The Gean (P. aviwm) is a real tree, forming a stout 
trunk, twenty, thirty, or even forty feet in height. 
Its branches all take an upward direction, and its 
large pale-green leaves hang downwards. Its soft 
petals fall widely open. The fruit may be red or 
black, and is not so round as the Dwarf Cherry, the 
part adjoining the stalk being broader than the other 
end. In both these species both stamens and pistils 
mature simultaneously, but in the third 
species, the Bird Cherry (P. padus), the 
pistils are earlier. The flowers are 
grouped in racemes,—that is, the flower- 
stalks arise at intervals from a longer 
ae . central stalk; the petals have somewhat 
paeiacs ragged edges. At first these flowers are 
erect, then droop. The fruit is egg-shaped, black, 
and erect. Its flavour is very bitter. From the first 
two of these cherries all our marketable kinds are 
believed to have been cultivated. 
Now, these succulent fruits have all been evolved 
by the Brambles, Plums, and Cherries to please the 
birds, in order that thereby the plants’ end might be 
served. That end once more is the dispersal of the 
seeds. If plants were animals, it would not be con- 
