ROSACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 15 
PRUNUS NIGRA. 
Red Plum. Canada Plum. 
CaLyx-Lozgs glandular-serrate, glabrous on the inner surface. Stone compressed. 
Leaves broadly oblong-ovate to obovate; petioles biglandular. 
Prunus nigra, Aiton, Hort. Kew. ii. 165.— Willdenow, Prunus mollis, Torrey, FU. U. S. 470. 
Spec. ii. pt. ii. 993; Hnum. 518; Berl. Baumz. ed. 2, Prunus Americana, Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 407 
311. — Poiret, Lam. Dict. v. 674. — Persoon, Syn. ii. 35. 
— Bot. Mag. t. 1117. — Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 331. — 
Torrey, Fv. U. S. 469. — Sprengel, Syst. ii. 477. — Spach, 
Hist. Vég. i. 399.— Roemer, Fam. Nat. Syn. iii. 59. 
(in part). —Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 19 (in part). — Torrey, F7. 
NV. Y.i. 194 (in part). — Provancher, Flore Canadienne, 
i. 162. — Koch, Dendr. i. 101 (in part). — Emerson, Trees 
Wass. ed. 2, ii. 511. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th 
Cerasus nigra, Loiseleur, Nouveau Duhamel, v. 32. —De 
Candolle, Prodr. ii. 538. — Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 
167.— Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 518.— Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 
704 (in part), £. 411, 412. 
Census U. S. ix. ‘65 (in part). — Watson & Coulter, 
Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 151 (in part). — Gray, Forest Trees 
NV. Am. t. 46. 
A small tree, twenty or thirty feet in height, with a trunk sometimes five or six inches in diameter, 
dividing, usually five or six feet from the ground, into a number of stout upright branches, which form 
a narrow rigid head. The bark of the trunk is an eighth of an inch thick, and light gray-brown, with 
a smooth outer layer which exfoliates in large thick plates composed of several papery coats, and in 
falling exposes a darker slightly fissured sealy inner bark. The branches in their second year develop 
stout spiny lateral spur-like secondary branchlets, which are sometimes two inches in length and grow 
into leafy branches. The branchlets, when they first appear, are bright green, glabrous or puberulous; 
they are slightly zigzag and marked by numerous pale excrescences, and in their second year are dark 
brown tinged with red. The winter-buds are acuminate, an eighth to a quarter of an inch in length, 
and covered with chestnut-brown triangular scales with broad pale scarious margins. The leaves are 
oblong-ovate or obovate, abruptly contracted at the apex into long narrow points, wedge-shaped, trun- 
cate, or slightly heart-shaped at the base, and doubly crenulate-serrate with small dark glandular teeth ; 
when they unfold they are faintly tinged with red, and are pubescent on the under surface, or are 
glabrous with the exception of conspicuous tufts of slender white or rufous hairs in the axils of 
the primary veins; at maturity they are membranaceous, rather opaque, light green on the upper, and 
pale on the lower surface, three to five inches long and one and a half to three inches broad, with 
conspicuous pale midribs and slender veins, and are borne on stout petioles from half an inch to an 
inch in length, and furnished near the apex with two large dark glands. The stipules are lanceolate 
or, on vigorous shoots, often three to five-lobed, glandular-serrate, half an inch in length, and early 
deciduous. The flowers, which are an inch and a quarter across when expanded, appear before the 
leaves, from the first of May in eastern New England to the end of the month at the north; they are 
proterandrous, and are produced in three or four-flowered umbels, with short thick peduncles conspicu- 
ously marked by the scars left by the falling of the bud-scales, which when fully grown are one third 
of an inch long, pale green tinged with pink, and usually persistent until the expansion of the flowers. 
These are borne on slender glabrous dark red pedicels which vary from one half to two thirds of an 
inch in length. The calyx-tube is broadly obconic, dark red on the outer, and bright red on the 
inner surface, with narrow acute glandular lobes, glabrous or occasionally pubescent on the outer 
surface, and reflexed after anthesis. The petals, which are white, turn pink in fading, and are broadly 
ovate, rounded at the apex, with more or less erose margins, and contracted at the base into short claws. 
