.578 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



year. Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, about T V long, with acute dark red-bro\vn glabrous 

 scales. Bark of young stems and of the branches thin, silvery gray, and roughened by long 

 horizontal lenticels, becoming on older trunks -|' thick, ashy gray or brownish black, deeply 

 fissured and broken into thick persistent platelike scales. 

 Distribution. Clay soil at Evergreen, Conecut County, Alabama; common. 



18. Prunus virens Shrive. Wild Cherry. 



Padus virens Woot. & Stanl. 

 Prunus serotina, ed. 1, in so far as relates to western Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. 



Leaves elliptic, ovate or rarely slightly obovate, acute, rounded or occasionally acumi- 

 nate or abruptly narrowed into a short obtuse point at apex, rounded or broad-cuneate at 

 base, finely crenately serrate, glabrous, light green and lustrous on the upper surface, 



Fig. 531 



lighter green and glabrous on the lower surface, l^'-2' long and f'-l' wide, with a 

 slender midrib, thin veins and reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, glabrous or rarely 

 slightly villose, without glands, \'-\' in length. Flowers appearing when the leaves 

 are nearly fully grown from the first to the middle of May, I' in diameter, on slender gla- 

 brous pedicels, in erect or spreading many-flowered glabrous or puberulous racemes 

 3'-6' long; -calyx-tube saucer-shaped, glabrous, T 3 / wide, persistent under the fruit, the 

 lobes short-pointed, acute, persistent; petals broad-obovate, pure white. Fruit ripening in 

 August and September, in erect or spreading racemes, subglobose to short-oblong, purplish 

 black and lustrous at maturity, \'-\' in diameter, with thin juicy acrid flesh; stone com- 

 pressed, slightly obovoid \' in diameter, with a low broad ridge on the ventral suture, and 

 rounded on the dorsal suture. 



A tree in sheltered canons sometimes 25-30 high, with a trunk 18' or 20' in diame- 

 ter, small, usually drooping or occasionally wide-spreading branches, and slender glabrous 

 red-brown pendulous branchlets marked by small pale lenticels, becoming gray-brown in 

 their second year; on open mountain slopes a shrub with numerous erect stems and usually 

 smaller leaves. Winter-buds acute or acuminate, T y~|' long, with slightly villose red- 

 brown scales. Bark near the base of old trunks \' thick, nearly black, deeply fissured and 

 broken on the surface into thin persistent scales, higher on the trunk and on small stems 

 thin, smooth, reddish or gray-brown, lustrous and marked by many narrow oblong pale 

 horizontal lenticels. 



Distribution. Guadalupe Mountains, western Texas, over the mountain ranges of 

 southern New Mexico and Arizona, extending northward in Arizona to the canons of the 



