The Cherry. 73 



The leaves are ovate-lanceolate, two to four inches in 

 length, serrate, and somewhat pendent. The flowers issue 

 from leafless buds, in umbellate clusters of two or three, 

 on peduncles usually exceeding an inch in length, the 

 petals arising from the edge of a very prettily urn-shaped 

 calyx j and, a very important feature, no suckers arise 

 from the root. Another important character is that the 

 flesh of the fruit clings to the stone. Favourably circum- 

 stanced, the sylvestris will attain the stature of nearly 

 eighty feet. Near Wragley, in Lincolnshire, there is one 

 seventy-six feet high, the trunk, at four feet from the 

 ground, eight and a half feet in circumference. Several 

 of equal dimensions exist in Hampshire. At Stedalt, 

 Balbriggan, twenty-two miles N.N.E. of Dublin, there is 

 one over eleven feet in circumference, four feet from the 

 ground ; and even this is surpassed by the renowned tree 

 upon Old Conna Hill, the girth of which is nineteen 

 feet! The huge proportions of these marvellous Irish 

 cherries are well matched in their aspect, which is at 

 once patriarchal and picturesque, as indeed is always 

 the case with trees where the former epithet falls well. 

 The identification of our native British trees by means 

 of their leaves, independently of the flowers and fruit, is 

 one of the most pleasing occupations of the young field 

 botanist. The cherry (among trees with ovate and 

 serrate leaves) is at once told by the presence of two 

 or three little red glands, often bright as holly-berries, 

 at the upper part of the petiole, just where the blade 

 begins. They occur also in the peach and some other 

 L 



