Handbook of Trees of the Xoktiierx States 



■205 



The Sour Cherry is a naturalized tree in the 

 United States, having been introduced on ac- 

 count of the value of its fruit, and has es- 

 caped from cultivation. It is a low spreading 

 or rounded tree, seldom more than 20 or 30 ft. 

 ill height or with trunk more than 10 or 12 in. 

 in thickness. The bark of young trunks is dis- 

 tinctly laminate, but with age breaks up and 

 exfoliates in thin curled scales, leaving a 

 roughish, somewhat ridged inner bark. The 

 native home of the Sour Cherry is thought to 

 be the forests of northern Persia and Cau- 

 casia, but it has become naturalized far out- 

 side of these limits and is found growing spon- 

 taneously in localities throughout the greatev 

 part of Europe and in northern Africa and 

 India, as well as in the United States. It is 

 hardier than the allied Sweet Cherry, has 

 smaller, more rigid and more upright leaves, 

 its spreading top is generally without a centril 

 leader and the bark of the trunk is less per- 

 sistently laminate. Among the valuable garden 

 cherries which have their origin in this species 

 are the Amarelles, Early Richmond, Montmo- 

 rency, etc., having a colorless juice, and the 

 Morellos and Louise Philippe, etc., having a 

 colored juice. They are all generally more 

 tart in flavor than those of the P. Avium ori- 

 gin and the trees hardier. There are also some 

 forms of the Sour Cherry which are of special 

 ornamental value, on account of double white 

 or pink-tinted flowers or leaves variegated witli 

 yellow or white. The normal characters are 

 given below . 



The wood of the Sour Cherry is rather light, 

 hird. brittle and of a light brown color with 

 lighter sap-wood. Tliough of good qualities it 

 i-; small and of no commercial importance in 

 this country. 1 



Leaves ovate to obovate, '21-2-4 in. Uincr. rounded 

 or obtuse at base acute or abruptly acuminate 

 unequally crenate-serrate, rather firm and thick, 

 lustrous dark green above, paler beneath. Flowrvf: 

 white, about 1 in. broad, appearing before or with 

 the leaves in few-flowered very scaly sessile umbels 

 from axillary buds on the growth of the previous 

 season : calyx-lobes strongly reflexed. Fruit sub- 

 globose or depressed globose, about V> in. in di- 

 ameter (larger in cultivation) red. withtuit bloom. 

 With juicy tart flesh and snbglobose pit. 



1. A. W., IV, 82. 



