RED OR REDDISH PURPLE 85 



fruit, is nearly globular, and has noticeable 

 grooves and ridges along one side. July. 



Leaves. — The leaves are oblong-lanceolate, 

 with pointed apex and rounded base. They 

 are finely serrate, and in arrangement are alter- 

 nate or in pairs. They are a bright shining 

 green above and lighter beneath. In autumn 

 they change to a bright yellow. The petioles 

 are slender and grooved. 



Flowers. — The white cherrylike flowers grow 

 in umbels of from five to eight blossoms 



The Wild Red Cherry is a small tree from 

 twenty to thirty feet high. It is especially a 

 tree of the Northern forests, but extends south- 

 wards along the mountains, attaining its great- 

 est size in the mountains of Tennessee. It often 

 springs up abundantly over cleared lands and is 

 found along ravines. 



George Emerson tells of using the dry beds 

 of hill streams as a footpath and of finding 

 there numerous stones of the Wild Red Cherry, 

 although there were no trees of the kind witliin 

 a considerable distance. Water, as well as birds, 

 seems in this case to act in scattering the seeds. 



The bark of the tree is reddish brown with 

 raised, rusty-looking dots, and has the common 



