322 TREES OF MINNESOTA. 



are expected to grow the following spring. If planted in the 

 autumn as soon as separated from the pulp about two-third? 

 of the seeds will grow the following spring and the remainder 

 the second year. It may also be grown from sprouts and roots 

 cuttings. 



Properties of wood. Heavy, hard, close grained and strong 

 It is dark brown in color, with a thin light-colored sapwood. 

 and takes a good polish. Specific gravity 0.7313; weight of a 

 cubic foot 46.95 pounds. 



Uses. The Wild Plum is pretty in flower and in fruit, and 

 is a good hardy ornamental tree, as well. as a good fruit tree. 

 The fruit of the wild kinds is readily sold, and is much used 

 for culinary purposes, and many of the cultivated kinds afford 

 excellent table fruits. This is one of the best undershrubs that 

 can be put in our prairie groves, where it affords protection to 

 the soil from evaporation and at the same time yields desirable 

 though of course inferior fruit under such conditions. 



Pruntis pennsylvanica. Wild Red Cherry. Bird 

 Cherry. Pigeon Cherry. Pin Cherry. 



Leaves oblong-lanceolate, long pointed, finely and sharply 

 serrate, with incurved teeth often tipped with minute glands, 

 thin, shining, green and smooth on both sides. Fruit ripens 

 in July or August, a very small, bright red drupe with thin sour 

 flesh and smooth oblong stone that is ridged on the ventral 

 margin. A small, handsdme tree that seldom reaches a height 

 of forty feet, and is often a mere shrub. It has smooth, red- 

 dish-brown, bark, which peels off in transverse strips around 

 the tree. 



Distribution. Found in moist, rather rich soil from New- 

 foundland west to the eastern slopes of the Coast Range and 

 south to northern Illinois and Pennsylvania; also in North 

 Carolina, Tennessee and Colorado. In Minnesota common 

 throughout all but the southwestern part of the state, where it 

 rarely occurs. 



Propagation. Grown from seeds, which should be stratified 

 and sown in the spring or sown in autumn. They are dis- 

 tributed by robins, wax-wings and other birds that eat largely 

 of the fruit. The Wild Red Cherry has thus become a very 

 common tree in waste- places, although not so common in our 



