ROSACEA. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 9 
Few genera of plants are more useful to man. Many of the species contain in the seeds and 
leaves considerable quantities of hydrocyanic acid, to which is due their peculiar odor... Some bear 
delicious fruits, which, fresh and dried, are important articles of human food, and others, espe- 
cially the Almond, produce valuable seeds. The dried fruit of the Old World Plum has laxative 
others are found in southern China, Japan, India, and the Cauca- 
sian provinces, in southwestern Europe and the north Atlantic 
African islands, and in the southern part of the United States, Cali- 
fornia, and Mexico. 
1 Baillon, Hist. Pl. i. 453. — Le Maout & Decaisne, Traité Gén. 
Bot. English ed. 388. The leaves and young branches of some 
species of Laurocerasus at the period of active vegetation contain 
such quantities of hydrocyanic acid as to be dangerous to animals 
browsing on them. A city ordinance of Mobile prohibits throwing 
the trimmings of Prunus Caroliniana, a favorite hedge plant in that 
city, into the streets where they might be eaten by cattle. 
2 More than three hundred varieties of plums are now recog- 
nized in the collections of Europe, where this tree has been culti- 
vated from the time of the ancients. The origin of the different 
races of the cultivated Old World Plums is obscure ; they are now 
generally supposed to have been derived from the crossing of dif- 
isout 
y 
ferent species, p ly Prunus and Prunus insititia, 
Linnzus (Spec. ed. 2, i. 680), or of the different varieties of the former 
which many authorities have considered species (Lucas, Einleitung 
in das Studium der Pomologie, Introduction. — Decaisne, Le Jardin 
Fruitier, viii. Prunier, 11). The cultivation of the Plum on a large 
scale is principally confined to the valley of the Loire and to the 
department of Lot-et-Garonne in France, to central Germany, 
and to Bosnia, Servia, Croatia, and California. In the valley of 
the Loire, which is one of the great sources of supply of the ordi- 
nary prunes of commerce, the variety principally grown is the 
Prunier de St. Julien (Prunus domestica, var. Juliana, De Candolle, 
Prodr. ii. 584). The best French prunes are produced in the re- 
gions lying about the town of Clariac in the valley of the Lot, from 
a variety known as Prunier d’Ente, which has been grown for at 
least a century in this region, where the cultivation of the trees 
and the harvesting and drying of the fruit is managed with the 
greatest care and skill. (For accounts of the production of prunes 
in France, see U. S. Consular Reports, Sept. 1888, 444. — Kew Bull. 
Miscellaneous Information, Dec. 1890, 263.) ‘The German prunes 
are principally the product of a tree considered by De Candolle to 
l ica (var. Pr li 1. c. 534), and 
by Koch (Dendr. i. 94) a species, Prunus economica of Borkhausen 
(Handb. Forstbot. ii. 1401). 
The Possavina district of northern Bosnia is now the most impor- 
be a variety of Prunus 
tant prune-producing region of southeastern Europe, the best fruit 
being grown on the sides of the hills descending into the plains of 
Possavina. The methods of cultivating and drying the fruit are 
rude and primitive, and the product is inferior to the best French 
and German prunes. The prunes grown in Bosnia and Servia are, 
however, largely exported to the United States, Germany, and 
Hungary (Spons, Encyclopedia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, 
and Raw Commercial Products, i. 1027.— Kew Bull. Miscellaneous 
Information, 1. c. 264). 
The Apricot, which has been cultivated in Europe since the ‘be- 
ginning of the Christian era, is now grown in most temperate coun- 
tries, especially in France, Italy, southern Germany, India, and 
California ; in some parts of India, where it flourishes in all the 
Himalayan region, as well as in Thibet and Afghanistan, the Apri- 
cot-trees constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants, the dried 
fruit being an important article of trade (Jacquemont, Voyage, ii. 
211, 434.— Brandis, Forest Fl. Brit. Ind. 191. — Hooker f. FV. Brit. 
Ind. ii. 318. — Balfour, Cyclopedia of India, ed. 3, iii. 299). The 
Apricot is commonly cultivated in northern China, where the seeds 
are used in the place of almonds (Bretschneider, On the Study and 
Value of Chinese Botanical Works, 10; Early European Researches 
into the Flora of China, 149.— Franchet, Pl. David. i. 104). In 
Japan the Apricot is occasionally cultivated, although the climate 
does not appear to suit it. The Japanese species, Prunus Mume, 
produces a small hard sour fruit which is sometimes eaten salted or 
dried, and is made into vinegar (Rein, Japan nach Reisen und Stu- 
dien im Auftrage der Kiniglich Preussischen Regierung, ii. 102). 
Bitter 
and sweet almonds are produced from trees which botanists regard 
The Almond is the most important plant of the genus. 
as varieties of one species, and which have been cultivated in the 
(M. Porcius Cato, De Re Rustica, 
cap. 8. — Harris, Nat. Hist. Bible, 6.) In the beginning of the four- 
teenth century almonds had become an important article of com- 
Orient from very early times. 
merce in Venice, and their consumption in medieval Europe was 
enormous. Sweet almonds are produced in great quantities in Italy, 
Portugal, the Canary Islands, and the countries which surround the 
Gulf of Persia (Spons, /. c. i. 1022), and in California, where the 
cultivation of the Almond has recently assumed importance (Wick- 
son, The California Fruits and How to Grow Them, ed. 2, 512.— 
C. H. Shinn, Garden and Forest, iv. 495); the best are now raised 
in Spain, and are known as the Jordan almonds. Bitter almonds are 
grown principally in the regions bordering on the Mediterranean, 
the best being produced in France and Sicily. 
The chief value of the Almond is in the oil which is pressed from 
the seeds; it is of two kinds, a fixed or fatty oil, and a volatile oil. 
The first is obtained from the fresh fruit of the bitter and of the 
sweet almond, and is manufactured in southern France, Italy, and 
The bitter almonds 
are first peeled in order to free them of the essential or volatile oil, 
Spain, the best quality being made in Majorca. 
and are then crushed; the sweet almonds are crushed without peel- 
It is of a 
clear yellow color and possesses an agreeable flavor, and is princi- 
ing, and the oil is then pressed from the crushed seeds. 
pally used by perfumers and, purified of its hydrocyanie acid, in 
medicine (Fliickiger & Hanbury, Pharmacographia, 216, 219.— 
Spons, J. ¢. ii. 1377, 1416). 
The Peach has been cultivated in northern China from time im- 
memorial ; it is also commonly grown in Mongolia and Cochin 
China (Loureiro, Fl. Cochin. 315), in Japan, where it is the most 
abundant of the stone-fruits (Rein, J. c. 101), in northern India, and 
in central and western Europe, where it appears to have been 
brought from Persia at the beginning of the Christian era (Brandis, 
Forest Fl. Brit. Ind. 191.— Balfour, 1. c. 166). It flourishes in 
the southern and central portions of North America ; and in some 
parts of the middle Atlantic and Pacific states the cultivation of 
the Peach is an important agricultural industry (Wickson, J. c. 
293). 
The Cherry, as a cultivated fruit-tree, has been known in Europe 
for at least two centuries, and innumerable varieties have been 
raised there and in the United States. These are of two races, the 
Bigarreau and Heart Cherries, with large, sweet, or slightly bitter 
fruit, derived from Prunus Aviwm, and the Morello and Duke 
Cherries, with smaller and often astringent fruit, derived from 
