568 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



with thick deep red or sometimes yellow lustrous skin, and hard austere thin flesh; stone tur- 

 gid, f '-f ' long, compressed at the ends, abruptly short-pointed or rounded at apex, rounded 

 or truncate at base, conspicuously ridge-margined on the ventral suture and broadly and 

 deeply grooved on the dorsal suture, thick-walled, usually conspicuously or rarely ob- 

 scurely rugose and pitted. 



A tree 20-30 high, without suckers from the roots, with a slender often inclining trunk, 

 frequently 5 '-6' or occasionally 10'-12' in diameter, dividing usually several feet above the 

 ground into thick spreading branches forming a broad round-topped head, and stout rigid 

 branchlets marked by minute pale lenticels, glabrous or slightly puberulous during their 

 first summer, rather dark red-brown, and usually unarmed or on vigorous trees armed with 

 stout spinescent lateral chestnut-colored branchlets; or often a shrub, with many stems 

 forming thicket-like clumps. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, with chestnut-brown scales 

 slightly cilia te on the margins, those of the inner ranks becoming oblong-lanceolate, acute, 

 glandular-serrate, sometimes $' in length. Bark thin, dark brown, separating into large 

 thin persistent plates, and displaying the light brown inner layers. 



Distribution. Low banks of streams in rich moist soil; southwestern Illinois to Scott 

 County, Iowa, and to eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma, and to central Ken- 



tucky and northwestern Tennessee; most abundant and of its largest size in Missouri. The 

 handsomest of American Plum-trees, and hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts. 

 Several selected forms are grown and valued by pomologists. Passing into var. Mineri 

 Bailey, with darker green duller leaves, and sometimes more scaly bark. Southwestern 

 Illinois to central Missouri; and into var. pubens Sarg. differing from the type in its 

 pubescent leaves, petioles and young branchlets. In the neighborhood of Webb City, 

 Jasper County, Missouri. 



Often cultivated by pomologists in many selected forms. 



10. Prunus Munsoniana Wight & Hedrick 



Leaves elliptic to lanceolate, acute or acuminate at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate 

 or rounded at base and finely glandular-serrate, when they unfold densely villose-pubescent 

 above and glabrous below, and at maturity thin, light green and lustrous on the upper sur- 

 face, pale on the lower surface, 2'-4' long and f-lj' wide, with a slender midrib often red 

 and usually pubescent or sparingly villose on the lower side, and slender primary veins 

 often furnished with small axillary clusters of white hairs; petioles slender, usually biglan- 

 dular toward the apex, the groove on the upper side covered with white pubescence, often 

 bright red, f' in length; stipules linear, glandular-serrate. Flowers appearing in Texas be- 

 fore the leaves at the end of March and as late as May after the appearance of the leaves at 



