458 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



southern Europe. About Damascus, it is cultivated extensively and a marmalade is 

 made from the fruit for sale. In the oases of Upper Egypt, the fruit of a variety called 

 musch-musch is dried in large quantities for the purpose of commerce. The fruit in general 

 is rovmdish, orange or brownish-orange, with a more or less deep orange-colored flesh; 

 the kernel in some sorts is bitter, in others as sweet as a nut.' Erdman describes the 

 " wild peach " of Nerchinsk, Siberia, as a true apricot, containing a very agreeable kernel 

 in a fleshless envelope. Harlan * describes a variety of Kabul as so especially lucious as 

 to require carefvd manipulation in gathering, so delicate that if one should fall to the 

 groimd, the shape would be destroyed. 



P. aspera Thunb. 



Japan. The blue drupe is eaten.' 



P. avium Linn, bird cherry, gean. mazzard. sweet cherry, wild cherry. 



Europe and the Caucasus. This is the species from which sweet cherries have sprung, 

 The wild species is small and of Httle value for eating. The fruits are employed in Switzer- 

 land and Germany in the distillation of a spirit known as kirschwasser.* Of the cultivated 

 fruits of this species, more than 75 varieties are described. The fruit is well esteemed, 

 but Hasselquist ^ says the giun may also be eaten and that a hundred men during a siege 

 were kept alive for two months on the gtim of the cherry alone. Cherry stones were 

 among the seeds mentioned in 1629 to be sent the Massachusetts Company;" they were 

 also planted at Yonkers, N. Y., about 1650,' as well as in Rhode Island,* and, in 1669. 

 Shrigley ' says they were cultivated in Virginia and Maryland. 



P. brigantiaca Vill. alpine plum, briancon plum, marmottes. oil plant. 



Gallia. The fruit is borne in clusters, is rotmd, yellow and pltim-like but is scarcely 

 eatable. In France and Piedmont, the kernels are used to proctu-e the huille des mar- 

 mottes, an oil considered superior to olive oil.'" 



P. buergeriana Miq. 



A large tree of Japan. The fruit is small and inferior but is sometimes gathered and 

 pickled in salt, when it is eaten as a condiment or appetizer." 



P. capollin Zucc. 



Mexico. The cherries are of a pleasant taste.'^ 



Thompson, R. Treas. Boi. 2:932. 1870. 

 2 Harlan U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 529. 1861. 

 ' Don, G. Hist. Dichl. Pis. 2:51^. 1832. (Cerasus aspera) 

 'Thompson, R. Treas. Bot. 1:251. 1870. (Cerasus avium) 

 " Johnson, C. P. Useful Pis. Gt. Brit. 87. 1862. 

 Mass. Records 1:24. 

 ' U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 293. 1853. 

 Ibid. 



Shrigley True Rel. Va., Md. 5. 1669. Force Coll. Tracts 3: 1844. 

 " Downing, A. J. Fr. Fr. Trees Amer. 242. 1857. 

 " Georgeson Amer. Card. 12:78. 1891. 

 "Unger, F. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 351. 1859. (Cerasus capoUin) 



