Handbook of Trees of the Northern States and Cana 



2S1 



The Choke Cherry is usually a tall shrub 

 and only under the most favorable conditions 

 does it become a tree liU to 30 ft. in height, with 

 irregular rounded top and crooked or leaning 

 trunk. This is rarely more than or 8 in. in 

 diameter, and is vested in a grayish brown 

 more or less mottled and rather smooth bark. 



It is abundant over a large part of its range 

 growing in moist rich soil of river l)()ttoms and 

 along fence-rows and road-sides, where its 

 finger-like i-acemes of white Ihiwers make it a 

 beautiful object in the nidiitli of ^lay, and its 

 stems of dark red cherries when fully ripe 

 offer refreshment to the wayfarer in the heat 

 of midsummer. The fruit is used in making 

 pies and jellies and is gathered for these uses 

 and marketed in many Canadian towns. Its 

 name is appropriately given in allusion to the 

 consequence of attempting to eat the fruit when 

 not thoroughly ripe, for it is then too astrin- 

 gent to be easily swallowed. 



Leaves obovate to oval or oblong, narrow and 

 rounded or tapering at base, abruptly acuminate 

 or sometimes acute at apex, finely and sharply 

 serrate with slender pointed teeth, glabrous and 

 dull dark green above, paler and pubescent along 

 the veins beneath. Floircrs Vi-% in. across in 

 cylindrical racemes terminating leafy branchlets ; 

 petals suborbicular. Fruit about % in. in di- 

 ameter, shining dark or light red (rarely yellow) 

 Eubglobose austere and astringent until very ripe 

 then edible ; stone nearly globose, about Vi in. long. 



