ROSACEA. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 19 
PRUNUS AMERICANA. 
Wild Plum, 
CALYX-LOBES entire, pubescent on the inner surface. 
Stone turgid. Leaves oval 
or slightly obovate ; petioles mostly eglandular. 
Prunus Americana, Marshall, Arbust. Am. 111. — Dar- 
lington, Ann. Lye. N. Y. iii. 87, t.1; Fl. Cestr. ed. 3, 
72. — Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 407 (in part). — 
Nuttall, Sylva, ii. 19 (in part), t. 48. — Torrey, #7. N. Y. 
i. 194 (in part); Hmory’s Rep. 408; Pacific R. R. Rep. 
iv. 82. — Koch, Dendr. i. 101 (in part). — Ridgway, Proc. 
U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 65.— Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 
10th Census U. S. ix. 65 (in part). — Watson & Coulter, 
Gray's Man. ed. 6, 151 (in part). — Coulter, Contrib. 
U. S. Nat. Herb. ii. 102 (Man. Pl. W. Texas). 
? Prunus Mississippi, Marshall, Arbust. Am. 112. 
Prunus spinosa?, Walter, #7. Car. 146 (not Linnzus). 
Prunus hiemalis, Michaux, F7. Bor.-Am. i. 284 (in part). — 
Desfontaines, Hist. Arb. ii. 206 (in part). — Du Mont de 
Courset, Bot. Cult. ed. 2, v. 539.— Poiret, Lam. Dict. 
y. 679 (in part). — Persoon, Syn. ii. 35. — Nouveau Du- 
hamel, v. 184 (in part). — Elliott, Sk. i. 542. — Schmidt, 
Ocstr. Baumz. iv. 48, t. 231.— Spach, Hist. Vég. i. 398. 
— Roemer, Fam. Nat. Syn. iii. 59 (in part). 
Prunus nigra, Muehlenberg, Cat. Pl. Am. Sept. ed. 2, 49 
(not Aiton). 
Cerasus hiemalis, De Candolle, Prodr, ii. 538 (in part). — 
Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 168 (in part). — Don, Gen. Syst. 
ii. 514 (in part). — Loudon, Ard. Brit. ii. 704 (in part). 
Cerasus nigra, Hooker, Compan. Bot. Mag. i. 24 (not 
Loiseleur). 
Cerasus Americana, Hooker, Compan. Bot. Mag. i. 24. 
A tree, twenty to thirty-five feet in height, with a trunk which rarely exceeds a foot in diameter 
and divides, usually four or five feet from the ground, into many spreading branches, often pendulous 
toward the extremities, which form a broad graceful head, and are furnished with long slender remote 
sometimes spinescent lateral spur-like branchlets. The bark of the trunk is half an inch thick and dark 
brown tinged with red, the outer layers separating into large thin persistent plates. The branchlets, 
when they first appear, are light green and glabrous or puberulous, or coated with dense pale tomentum ; 
they are light orange-brown during their first winter, and in their second year are darker, often tinged 
with red, and marked with minute circular excrescences. The winter-buds are covered with chestnut- 
brown triangular scales with more or less erose margins; the inner scales when fully grown are folia- 
ceous, half an inch long, oblong, acute, remotely serrate, furnished below the middle with two narrow 
The leaves are oval or 
slightly obovate, acuminate, narrowed and occasionally rounded at the base, sharply and often doubly 
acuminate lobes, and fall after the small colorless scales of the outer rows. 
serrate; when they unfold they are sometimes nearly glabrous, or are furnished on the lower surface 
with conspicuous tufts of pale hairs, or are pubescent or densely coated below with thick pale tomentum ; 
at maturity they are rather coriaceous, more or less rugose, dark green on the upper, and paler on the 
lower surface, and glabrous or coated below with pale or rufous pubescence or tomentum; they are 
three or four inches long and an inch and a half broad, with slender midribs grooved on the upper 
side and narrow primary veins, and are borne on slender petioles one half to two thirds of an inch in 
length and usually destitute of glands. The stipules are linear or often three-lobed, sharply serrate, 
1 The amount and character of the pubescence on the leayes and 
shoots of Prunus Americana vary considerably on different indi- 
viduals and in different parts of the country ; in the eastern and 
southern states the leaves are either glabrous or slightly pubescent 
on the lower surface along the midribs and primary veins ; in the 
valley of the Mississippi the lower surface is offen covered with 
pubescence ; and from Missouri to northern Mexico, especially 
south of the Red River, the young branches, the lower surface of 
the leaves, and the petioles are coated with pale tomentum. This 
form which gradually passes into the smooth form of the east and 
of the Rocky Mountains is 
Var. mollis, Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 407.— Sargent, Forest 
Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 65.—Havard, Proc. U. S. 
Nat. Mus. viii. 512.— Coulter, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. ii. 102 
(Man. Pl. W. Texas). 
