ROSACEA. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 33 
PRUNUS UMBELLATA. 
Sloe. Black Sloe. 
CALYX-LoBEs entire, glabrous or pubescent on the outer, tomentose on the inner 
surface. Fruit black covered with bloom. Leaves obovate-lanceolate to oblong. 
Prunus umbellata, Elliott, Sk. i. 541. — Dietrich, Syn. iii, ? Prunus pumila, Walter, #7. Car. 146 (not ‘Linnzeus). 
44. — Chapman, FV. 119. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. Cerasus umbellata, Torrey & Gray, Hl. N. Am. i. 409. — 
10th Census U. S. ix. 67. Roemer, Fam. Nat. Syn. iii. 78. 
A tree, sometimes fifteen or twenty feet in height, with a short often crooked or inclining trunk 
six to ten inches in diameter, and slender unarmed branches which form a wide compact flat-topped 
head; or frequently a low shrub. The bark of the trunk is a quarter of an inch thick, the dark brown 
surface separating into small appressed persistent scales. The branchlets, when they first appear, are 
more or less densely coated for a short time with pale pubescence; they soon become glabrous and are 
covered with a lustrous bright red bark which, in their second year, is dark brown and lustreless, and 
is marked with occasional orange-colored oblong lenticels. The winter-buds are a sixteenth of an inch 
long and are protected by acute chestnut-brown apiculate scales ; those of the inner rows lengthen with 
the young shoots and at maturity are a quarter of an inch in length and red-tipped. The leaves are 
obovate-lanceolate to oblong, acute at both ends or sometimes rounded or slightly cordate at the base, 
finely and sharply serrate with remote incurved glandular teeth, and usually furnished with two large 
dark glands at the very base of the blade; when they unfold they are bright bronze-green with red 
margins, midribs, and petioles, and are membranaceous, glabrous on the upper surface, and. pubescent or 
glabrous on the lower with the exception of a few hairs along the prominent orange-colored midribs and 
primary veins; at maturity they are two to two and a half inches in length and an inch to an inch and 
a half in breadth, membranaceous, dark green above and paler below, and are borne on stout glabrous 
or pubescent petioles. The stipules are lanceolate, setaceous, glandular-serrate, from one fourth to two 
thirds of an inch long, and caducous. The flowers, which expand in March and April before the 
appearance of the leaves, are two thirds of an inch across and are borne on slender glabrous pedicels 
half an inch long, in three or four-flowered subsessile umbels. The calyx-tube is broadly obconie, 
glabrous or puberulous on the outside, with acute red tipped lobes sometimes slightly cleft at the apex, 
scarious on the margins, and coated on the inner surface with thick white tomentum. The petals are 
nearly orbicular and are contracted at the base into short claws. The filaments and pistil are glabrous. 
The fruit, which ripens from July to September, is borne on a slender stem which varies from half an 
inch to nearly an inch in length; it is globose without a basal depression, half an inch in diameter, and 
is tipped with the remnant of the style; the skin is tough, thick, and bright red when the fruit is 
first fully grown, but black or nearly so when it is ripe, and then covered with a glaucous bloom; the 
flesh is thick and acid and adheres to the flattened stone, which is half as thick as it is broad, acute at 
both ends, slightly rugose, conspicuously ridged on one margin and slightly grooved on the other, with 
thin and brittle walls. 
Prunus umbellata is distributed through the maritime portions of the southern Atlantic and Gulf 
states from South Carolina to Mosquito Inlet in Florida, and from Tampa Bay to eastern Mississippi ; 
it reappears on the banks of the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is scattered 
through the valley of the Red River from Alexandria to Shreveport, Louisiana, and to near Camden 
in southern Arkansas. It grows on the rich sandy bottom-lands of rivers and large creeks, and along 
