50 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ROSACEA. 
Cape Fear River to the shores of Bay Biscayne and the valley of the Kissimmee River in Florida, and 
through southern Alabama, Missouri, and Louisiana to the valley of the Guadaloupe River in Texas. It 
grows in deep rich humid bottom-lands, reaching its greatest size in the valleys of eastern Texas, where 
it often forms nearly impenetrable thickets of considerable size; in the eastern Gulf and Atlantic states 
it is nowhere common and is confined to the islands and the immediate neighborhood of the sea, rarely 
penetrating inland more than fifteen or twenty miles. 
The wood of Prunus Caroliniana is heavy, hard, strong, and close-grained ; it is light red-brown 
or sometimes rich dark brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood, a satiny surface susceptible of receiy- 
ing a beautiful polish, and many thin medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 
is 0.8688, a cubic foot weighing 54.14 pounds. 
Prunus Caroliniana contains hydrocyanic acid in considerable quantities, and the partially with- 
ered leaves and young branches have proved fatal to animals browsing upon them.+ 
Prunus Caroliniana was first described by Mark Catesby in his Natural History of Carolina, 
published in 1731, and was first cultivated in Europe in the Physic Garden at Chelsea by Philip Miller, 
who received it from Catesby in 1759. 
The beauty of the foliage* of the Mock Orange, its early and abundant flowers, and the rapidity 
of its growth, make it a favorite garden plant in the southern states, where it has been used from early 
times to decorate the neighborhood of dwellings, and to form hedges, for which purpose it is well 
adapted by its rigid leaves and its power of withstanding the effects of annual prunings.° 
1 Elliott, Sk. i. 540. which grows about 30 feet high in S. Carolina, and from the 
2 Ligustrum Lauri folio, fructu violaceo, i. 61, t. 61. beauty of its evergreen shining leaves is called the Mock-orange ; 
Padus foliis | latis acute denticulatis sempervirentibus, Miller, the fruit of this steeped in brandy makes a fine flavoured ratafie.” 
Dict. ed. 7, No. 6. (Stork, An Account of East Florida, Bartram’s Journal, 9, note.) 
8 Aiton, Hort. Kew. ii. 163. 5 Porcher, Resources of Southern Fields and Forests, 171. — Nau- 
4 “There is an evergreen sort of this Bird or Cluster-cherry din, Manuel de ?Acclimateur, 197. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Puatze CLX. Prunus CaRouiniana. 
A flowering and fruiting branch, natural size. 
A flower, enlarged. 
Vertical section of a flower, enlarged. 
Vertical section of a fruit, natural size. 
Cross section of a fruit, natural size. 
An embryo, enlarged. 
Vertical section of a portion of the embryo, showing the radicle, enlarged. 
. A stone, enlarged. 
oo See 
. The inflorescence before anthesis, showing the bracts, natural size. 
. A spinulose-toothed leaf, natural size. 
iy 
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