34 



Elementary Work in Botany. 



EXERCISE 21. 



Fruit Spurs of Cherry. Compare your specimen with 

 the figure on this page. Make out the seasonal growths. 

 In what months do cherry-trees grow? 

 When do they blossom, and when is the 

 work of the blossoms completed; i. e. } 

 when are cherries ripe? Examine the 

 growth of the last season. How many 

 winter buds were made? Find the scars 

 of the leaves which nourished them. 

 Observe that the terminal bud is smaller 

 than the others. Note the number of 

 visible scales on one of the lateral buds. 

 Carefully remove with a needle all the 

 scales, one at a time. Do not let the 

 point of the needle reach the center at 

 the base where you ought to find three 

 or four tiny buds, which are shown mag- 

 nified in the figure. If you have a micro- 

 scope it will be easy to make out the 

 parts of a flower in each bud. Each of 

 the larger brown buds, then, encloses 

 several blossom buds (2 to 5). Do cher- 

 ries grow two, three, or four together? 

 Dissect the terminal bud. It contains 

 only the rudiments of a stem and leaves. 

 Evidently a similar bud produced last summer the cluster 

 of buds which you are studying. Try to imagine the 



Fig. 24. Fruit spur of a 

 cherry-tree in its winter 

 condition, showing at the 

 upper end the buds which 

 grew during the summer 

 of 1896, with the scars be- 

 low them of the leaves 

 which fell in October of 

 that year. a. Depressed 

 scar left by stem of one of 

 the clusters of cherries 

 which ripened in June, 

 1896. b. Scar of the leaf 

 which fell in October, 

 1895. a 1 and b l show the 

 scars left by cherries of 

 1895 and the leaf of 1894. 

 s. shows the flower buds 

 magnified which are en- 

 closed in the side buds of 

 each seasonal growth. 



