576 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



ally toward the northern limits of its range shrub-like in habit. Winter-buds obtuse, or on 

 sterile shoots acute, with bright chestnut-brown broad-ovate scales keeled on the back 

 and apiculate at apex, those of the inner ranks becoming scarious at maturity, acuminate, 

 and f '-f ' long. Bark f f ' thick, broken by reticulated fissures into small irregular plates 

 scaly on the surface, and dark red-brown, or near the Gulf-coast light gray or nearly white. 

 Wood light, strong, rather hard, close straight-grained, with a satiny surface, light brown or 

 red, with thin yellow r sap wood of 10-12 layers of annual growth; largely used in cabinet- 

 making and the interior finish of houses. The bark, especially that of the branches and 

 roots, yields hydrocyanic acid used in medicine as a tonic and sedative. The ripe fruit is 

 used to flavor alcoholic liquors. 



Distribution. Nova Scotia westward through the Canadian provinces to Lake Superior, 

 and southward through the eastern states to central (Lake County) Florida, and westward 

 to eastern South Dakota, southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, central Oklahoma and 

 the valley of the east fork of the Frio River, Texas; usually in rich moist soil; once very 

 abundant in all the Appalachian region, reaching its greatest size on the slopes of the high 

 Alleghany Mountains from West Virginia to Georgia, and in Alabama; sometimes on low 

 sandy soil, and often in New England on rocky cliffs within reach of the spray of the ocean; 

 not common in the coast region of the southern states. 



A form from the summits of White Top Mountain, Virginia, with larger and rather 

 thicker leaves pale below and rather larger fruit, has been described as var. montana 

 Britt. 



1C. Prunus alabamensis Mohr. Wild Cherry. 



Leaves oval, broad-ovate, or occasionally obovate, acute, short-pointed or rounded at 

 apex, cuneate, rounded or rarely slightly obcordate at base, and finely serrate with incurved 

 teeth tipped with minute or sometimes near the base of the blade with larger dark glands, 

 when they unfold coated below and on the upper side of the midrib with fine pubescence, 

 and at maturity thick and firm in texture, 4'-5' long, about 2' wide, dark dull green and 

 glabrous on the upper surface, dull and covered on the lower surface with short simple or 



Fig. 529 



forked accrescent hairs most abundant and sometimes rufescent on the slender midrib and 

 primary veins; petioles stout, tomentose, becoming pubescent, eglandular or occasionally 

 furnished near the apex with 1 or 2 large dark glands, l'-\' in length; stipules lanceolate, 

 acuminate, glandular-serrate, bright red, \' long, caducous. Flowers appearing during the 

 first w y eek of May, when the leaves are about half grown, \' in diameter, on pubescent pedi- 

 cels from the axils of ovate or obovate acuminate bright pink caducous bracts, in spreading 



