ROSACE^E 



559 



thin brittle walls, \' long, i'-jV wide and half as thick, acute at the ends, slightly rugose, 

 conspicuously ridged on the ventral suture, and slightly grooved on the dorsal suture. 



A tree, sometimes 15-20 high, with a short often crooked or inclining trunk 6'-10' in 

 diameter, slender unarmed branches forming a wide compact flat-topped head, and slender 

 branchlets more or less densely coated at first with pale pubescence, soon becoming gla- 

 brous, lustrous and bright red, and in their second year dark dull brown and marked by 



Fig. 513 



occasional orange-colored oblong lenticels; or frequently a low shrub. Winter-buds about 

 long, with acute chestnut-brown apiculate scales, those of the inner rows at maturity j' 

 long and red at the apex. Bark \' thick, dark brown, separating into small appressed per- 

 sistent scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, dark reddish brown, with thick lighter 

 colored sapwood of about 30 layers of annual growth. The fruit is used in large quantities 

 in making jellies and jams. 



Distribution. Stanly County (near Albemarle, J. S. Holmes), North Carolina, and 

 South Carolina southward, usually in the neighborhood of the coast, to Orange County, 

 Florida, and westward to eastern Texas and southern Arkansas. The form with red 

 fruit common in the interior of the Florida peninsula (Orange County). Variable in the 

 amount of its pubescence and slightly variable in the shape of the fruit, and passing into 

 var. injucunda Sarg. (Prunus mitis Beadl.) A small tree with branchlets hoary tomentose 

 when they first appear, becoming pubescent, and puberulous in their second season, leaves 

 more or less tomentose below, villose pedicels, calyx and ovary, and subglobose to short- 

 oblong fruit. Central and southern Georgia (base of Stone Mountain and Little Stone 

 Mountain, De Kalb County, and near Augusta, Richmond County), and eastern Ala- 

 bama (near Auburn, Lee County). More distinct is 



Prunus umbellate var. tarda Wight 

 Prunus tarda Sarg. 



Differing from the type in the more oblong stone of the later-ripening fruit, lighter- 

 colored bark and larger size. 



Leaves oblong or oval, or occasionally obovate, acute or acuminate and short-pointed at 

 apex, gradually narrow r ed and cuneate at base, and finely serrate with straight or incurved 

 teeth tipped with dark minute persistent glands, when they unfold glabrous or rarely sca- 

 brous or puberulous above and cinereo- tomentose below, and at maturity thick and firm, 

 dark yellow-green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and pubescent or puberulous 

 on the lower surface, especially along the prominent light yellow midrib and thin primary 



