THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 23 



The geographical distribution of these cherries is most interesting.^ 

 From North America come but five species of cherries but two of which, 

 Primus besseyi and Primus pumila, furnish food and these two as yet 

 are but sparingly grown; all five, however, are more or less used as stocks. 



Greene^ has described, in addition to the five accepted ones, eleven new 

 species of true cherries from the far west of the type of Primus emarginata, 

 some of which at least have furnished food to the Indians, miners and 

 trappers and may have horticultural possibilities for the desert regions 

 in which they are found either for fruit or as stocks. 



From the western portion of the Old World, including all of Europe, 

 northern Africa, Asia Minor, Persia, Turkestan and Afghanistan come 14 

 species. From this region, though the number of species as compared 

 with East Asia is small, we have all of the cultivated esculent cherries, 

 if possibly Primus tomentosa be excepted. Though nearly all of the species 

 of this large territory are found — possibly all originated there — in the 

 southeastern part of Europe and the adjoining southwestern part of Asia, 

 yet they seem, with one or two exceptions, to be quite distinct from the 

 species of the eastern half of the Old World — the Himalaya Mountains 

 separating the two regions. It is probable that when west central Asia 

 has been as well explored botanically as the east central part of the con- 

 tinent, many new species will be added to Prunus and its sub-genus Cerasus. 



It is in the eastern half of the Old World that the cherry flora is 

 richest. More than 100 of the 119 species of Cerasus recognized by Koehne 

 are found in the Himalaya Mountains and the region to the east including 

 Japan and the Kuril Islands. Yet out of all of this wealth of raw material 

 only Primus tomentosa has been truly domesticated as an esculent though 

 possibly a score of these species are well-known ornamentals. Of the 

 100 eastern Asiatic species about 75 belong to China — the remainder to 



■ Koehne has presented the results of a careful study of the distribution of cherries in Mitt. Deutsch. 

 Dendr. Ges. 168-183. I9I2- 



"Greene {Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 18:55-60. 1905), preferring Cerasus to Prunus as a generic name 

 for racemose cherries, gives the following new species: Cerasus calif ornica {Fl. Francis. 50. 1 891) from 

 the hills of middle western California; Cerasus crenulata from the Mongolian Mountains, New Mexico; -yyvH^v '^■^ 

 Cerasus arida inhabiting the borders of the desert at the eastern base of the San Bernardino Mountain, 

 California; Cerasus prunifolia found in the mountains of Fresno County, California; Cerasus rhamnoides 

 collected at Mud Springs, Amador County, California; Cerasus kelloggiana from the middle Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains in California; Cerasus padifolia collected in the foothills near Carson City, Nevada; Cerasus 

 obliqua described from a single specimen from Oroville, California; Cerasus parvi flora known only from 

 Mt. Shasta, California; Cerasus obtusa from the arid interior of southeastern Oregon; and Cerasus 

 Irichopetala found at Columbia Falls, Montana. The type specimens of these eleven species are in the 

 National Herbarium at Washington. 





