The Phims and Cherries 



111 



The twigs are slender, smooth, red, and shiny, and bitter if chewed. The 

 two-year-old twigs send out short lateral spur-like branchlets. The winter buds 

 are very small, blunt, reddish-brown and characteristically clustered at the tip of 

 the twig. 



The leaves are 3 to 5 in. long and ^ to 1 in. wide long and narrow, somewhat 

 like the peach leaf. They are shiny, green, smooth, finely-toothed, and more 

 tapered than those of the black cherry. 



The fruit is pea-sized, cherry-red, and sour. It can readily be distinguished 

 from the fruit of the black or choke cherries by the difference in colour and flavour 

 and by the fact that the cherries are not in elongated clusters. Each is borne on a 

 single long stem as are the garden cherries. 



PRUNUS VIRGINIANA, Linn. CHOKE CHERRY 



Common names: Choke cherry, wild cherry*. 



French names: Cerisier a grappes, cerisier de Virginia, cerisier 

 sauvage. 



The choke cherry is a shrub or small tree, more often a shrub, 10 to 20 ft. high 

 and 4 to 6 in. in diameter. 



CHOKE CHERRY 

 ^ y/ro/niana 



' ' ' STAT 



It is found all the way across Canada, from the Atlantic to the Rocky moun- 

 tains, growing in fence corners, open borders of woodlots, and along the roadsides, 

 but is not found in commercial sizes or quantities. 



