ROSACES 513 



turning from green to orange, often with a red cheek, bright red when fully ripe, 

 destitute of bloom and more or less conspicuously marked by pale spots, with tough 

 thick acerb skin, bright yellow succulent rather juicy acid flesh, and an oval slightly 

 rugose stone pointed at the apex, more or less contracted at the base, f f long 

 and often as thick as broad, slightly and acutely ridged on the ventral and obscurely 

 grooved on the dorsal suture. 



A tree, 20-35 high, with a trunk rarely exceeding a foot in diameter, and divided 

 usually 4-5 from the ground into many spreading branches often pendulous at 

 the ends and forming a broad graceful head, branchlets at first light green, glabrous, 

 puberulous or coated with dense pale tomentum, light orange-brown during their 

 first winter, becoming darker and often tinged with red and marked by minute cir- 

 cular raised lenticels, and long slender remote sometimes spinescent lateral branch- 

 lets. Wiiiter-bud3 acute, ^'-\' long, with chestnut-brown scales more or less erose 

 on the margins, the inner scales when fully grown foliaceous, ' long, oblong, acute, 

 remotely serrate, with two narrow acuminate lateral lobes. Bark about ' thick, 

 dark brown tinged with red, the outer layer separating into large thin persistent 

 plates. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, strong, dark rich brown tinged with red, 

 with thin lighter colored sapwood. The fruit is sometimes used in the preparation 

 of jellies and preserves, and is eaten raw or cooked. 



Distribution. In the middle and northern states in rich soil, growing along the 

 borders of streams and swamps, and frequently forming thickets of considerable 

 extent; in the south Atlantic states often in river swamps; west of the Mississippi 

 River on bottom-lands and dry limestone uplands; middle and northern New Jersey, 

 and central New York to Nebraska; the valley of the upper Missouri River in Mon- 

 tana, the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and southward to the 

 Chattahoochee region of western Florida, the valley of the Rio Grande in southern 

 Xew Mexico, and the mountains of Northern New Mexico; most abundant and of 

 its largest size in southern Arkansas and eastern Texas. 



West of the Mississippi River from Missouri to Texas the common form (var. 

 lanata, Sudw.) is pubescent through the season on the under surface of the leaves, 

 the calyx-lobes, pedicels, and branchlets, and should perhaps be considered a distinct 

 species. 



Often cultivated in the eastern states as an ornamental or fruit tree. Numerous 

 varieties are propagated by pomologists. 



3. Prunus hortulana, Bailey. Wild Plum. 



Leaves ovate-lanceolate, contracted at the apex into long slender points, wedge- 

 shaped or more or less rounded at the narrow base, and finely serrate, with incurved 

 lanceolate glandular teeth, when they unfold pilose, with slender white hairs, and at 

 maturity glabrous above, pilose below in the axils of the primary veins and along 

 the midribs, thin but firm, dark green and lustrous on the upper, paler on the lower 

 surface, 4'-G' long, I'-l^' wide, with broad conspicuous orange-colored midribs, 

 primary veins connected near the margins of the leaf, and prominent reticulate 

 veinlets; their petioles slender, orange-colored, !'-!' long and furnished above the 

 middle with numerous scattered dark glands; stipules lanceolate-acuminate, gland- 

 ular-serrate, early deciduous. Flowers appearing- in April or early in May when 

 the leaves are about one third grown, '-!' in diameter, on slender puberulous pedi- 

 cels ^' long, in 2-4-flowered umbels; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, puberulous on the 

 outer surface, the lobes ovate, acute or rounded at the apex, glandular-serrate, 



