KOSACE^E 



577 



or erect slender pubescent racemes 3 '-4' long; calyx-tube broad, cup-shaped, puberulous, 

 with short almost triangular lobes persistent on the fruit; petals white, nearly orbicular. 

 Fruit ripening late in September, subglobose to short-oblong, \' in diameter, dark red or 

 finally nearly black, with thin acid flesh; stone ovoid somewhat compressed, pointed at the 

 ends, I' long, ridged on the ventral suture with a broad low ridge, and slightly grooved on 

 the dorsal suture. 



A tree, 25-30 high, with a short trunk rarely 10' in diameter, spreading somewhat 

 drooping branches, and slender branchlets coated at first with pale tomentum, dark red- 

 brown during their first season, becoming nearly glabrous before winter, and much darker 

 in their second year. Bark of the trunk dark, rough, separating freely into small thin 

 scales. 



Distribution. Summits of the low mountains of central Alabama; rare and local. 



17. Prunus australis Beadl. Wild Cherry. 



Leaves obovate, oval or elliptic, gradually narrowed and obtusely short-pointed or some- 

 times acute at apex, rounded or occasionally cuneate at the narrowed base, and finely serrate 

 with slender teeth tipped with minute dark red glands, when they unfold membranaceous, 





Fig. 530 



pale yellow-green and glabrous above, with the exception of occasional pale hairs along the 

 midrib, and coated below 7 with pale or ferrugineous pubescence, and at maturity thin but 

 firm, dark dull green above, covered below 7 with rufous hairs most abundant on the thin 

 broad midrib, and on the slender primary veins extending nearly to the margins of the leaf, 

 conspicuously reticulate-venulose, 2|'-4' long and 1^'-2|' wide; petioles rusty-tomen- 

 tose, biglandular at apex witji large dark glarids, about \' in length; stipules linear to linear- 

 lanceolate, glandular, bright rose color, \'-\' long. Flowers probably opening toward the 

 end of April, on short pedicels from the axils of minute rose-colored caducous bracts, in 

 slender spreading hoary-pubescent racemes 3'-4' long; the expanded flowers not known. 

 Fruit ripening and falling late in July, on pedicels \' long, globose, surrounded at base by the 

 calyx-lobes and remnants of the stamens, dark purple when fully ripe, and about \' in 

 diameter, with thin flesh; stone ovoid, compressed, rounded at base, pointed at apex, about 

 ' long and broad, ridged on the ventral suture, with a low broad ridge, slightly grooved 

 on the dorsal suture. 



A tree, sometimes 60 tall, with a trunk 12'-16' in diameter, spreading or ascending 

 branches forming an oblong head, and slender branchlets coated at first with pale pubes- 

 cence, becoming puberulous, dull red-brown, and roughened by numerous small pale ele- 

 vated lenticels at the end of their first season, and glabrous or puberulous in their second 



