LIST OF TEEES AND SHRUBS. 289 



the Puckesaminan of the Crees -, and La Prune, or the plum, of 

 the white residents. 



The Neka-u-mina of the Chippeways, or Theka-u-mina of 

 the Crees, and sand cherry of the residents on Rainy River 

 and Lake Winipeg, is a hush or small shrubby tree a foot and 

 a half high, which grows on sand hills. The bark of its annoti- 

 nous and biennial shoots is reddish, and the older twigs are 

 brownish, with small warty specks. When in fruit (in which 

 state only I examined it in September, 1849) the fruitstalks 

 are solitary, and spring from the base of the summer's growth ; 

 they are rather more than half an inch long, or about equal to 

 the diameter of the fruit, which is black and rather austere, 

 but edible. The stone is 0*38 inch long, almost regularly 

 elliptical and acute at the ends, but more so at one end than the 

 other. Its valves are very convex, so that its width exceeds its 

 thickness very little. The sides are not acute-edged : one su- 

 ture is depressed, forming a shallow groove ; on the other side, 

 which is very obtuse and almost flattened, there is a furrow 

 above and below the suture, and rather remote from it. The 

 annotinous shoots are smooth, angular, and generally flexuose, 

 with the leaves springing alternately at the curves. The leaves 

 measure two inches and a half, the footstalk forming about one 

 fifth part of this length. The lamina is lanceolato-elliptical ; 

 that is, nearly regularly elliptical, with an acute end, and a gradual 

 tapering into the footstalk ; it is serrated by acute, appressed 

 teeth at the upper end, and is entire towards the footstalk ; its 

 under surface is pale and somewhat glaucous, the upper one 

 dark green, and both sides are perfectly smooth. The foot- 

 stalks are edged by the decurrent lamina for more than half 

 their length, and the deciduous linear-lanceolate stipulae are 

 inciso-pinnate inferiorly. This cherry is probably the Cerasus 

 pumila of Michaux and later American botanists. It was not 

 traced by me beyond the 50th parallel. 



Another small shrubby cherry grows, on moist sandy soil, by 



the banks of rivers and lakes, from Lake Superior to the Elk 



River on the 57th parallel. Its fruit is scarcely half the size of 



the preceding, but is, like it, black, and hangs generally on 



VOL. IT. U 



