ROSACILE 571 



12. Primus pennsylvanica L. Wild Red Cherry. Bird Cherry. 



Leaves oblong-lanceolate, sometimes slightly falcate, acuminate or rarely acute, and 

 finely and sharply serrate with incurved teeth often tipped with minute glands, when they 

 unfold bronze-green, pilose below and slightly viscid, soon becoming green and glabrous, 

 and at maturity bright and lustrous on the upper surface, rather paler on the lower surface, 

 3'-4|' long and f'-lj' wide; turning bright clear yellow some time before falling in the 

 autumn; petioles slender, glabrous or slightly pilose, |'-1' in length, and often glandular 

 above the middle; stipules acuminate, glandular-serrate, early deciduous. Flowers ap- 

 pearing in early May when the leaves are about half grown, or at the extreme north and at 

 high altitudes as late as the 1st of July, \' in diameter, on slender pedicels nearly 1' long, in 



4 or 5-flowered umbels or corymbs; calyx-tube broad-obconic, glabrous, marked in the 

 mouth of the throat by a conspicuous light orange-colored band, the lobes obtuse, red at 

 apex, and reflexed after the flowers open; petals \' long, nearly orbicular, contracted at 

 base into a short claw, creamy white. Fruit ripening from the 1st of July to the 1st of Sep- 

 tember, globose, \' in diameter, with a thick light red skin, and thin sour flesh; stone oblong, 

 thin-walled, slightly compressed, pointed at apex, rounded at base, about T y long, and 

 ridged on the ventral suture. 



A tree, with bitter aromatic bark and leaves, 30-40 high, with a trunk often 18'-20' in 

 diameter, regular slender horizontal branches forming a narrow usually more or less 

 rounded head, and slender branchlets light red and sometimes slightly puberulous when 

 they first appear, soon glabrous, bright red, lustrous and covered with pale raised lenticels 

 in their first winter, and developing in their second year short thick spur-like lateral branch- 

 lets and then covered with dull red bark marked by bright orange-colored lenticels, the 

 outer coat easily separable from the brilliant green inner bark; at the extreme north often a 

 low shrub. Winter-buds ovoid to ellipsoid, acute, about -fa' long, with bright red-brown 

 acute scales, ciliate on the margins. Bark of young stems and of the branches smooth and 

 thin, bright reddish brown, becoming on old trunks \'-\' thick, and separating horizontally 

 into broad persistent papery dark red-brown plates marked by irregular horizontal bands 

 of orange-colored lenticels and broken into minute persistent scales. Wood light, soft, 

 close-grained, light brown, with thin yellow sapwood. The fruit is often used domestically 

 and in the preparation of cough mixtures. 



Distribution. Newfoundland to the shores of Hudson's Bay, and westward in British 

 America to the eastern slopes of the coast range of British Columbia in the valley of the 

 Frazer River, and southward through New England, New York, northern Pennsylvania, 

 central Michigan, northern Illinois, central Iowa, and on the Appalachian Mountains, 



