98 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



Plains, Massachusetts, and the City parks at Rochester, New York, it 

 seems well worth cultivating. Mr. J. W. Kerr writes of it as follows: 



" I have P. orthosepala fruiting here, and with me its fruit is excep- 

 tionally fine in quality, sparingly produced attributable I believe to the 

 fact that no variety stands near enough to it for proper inter-pollination. 

 The trees are rather dwarfish in habit, close-headed, with fine clean foliage. 

 The fruit is globular in form; size equal to fair specimens of Hawkeye 

 or Wyant; skin a greenish-yellow, almost entirely covered with deep red." 



W. F. Wight of the United States Department of Agriculture has 

 collected specimens of a cultivated plum, taken from the wild, locally known 

 as the Laire, in Rooks and neighboring counties in Kansas, with foliage 

 very similar to Prunus orthosepela. While the identity of Laire with the 

 species under discussion cannot be established at this time, the reported 

 source of the seeds, "southern Texas," from which Prunus orthosepela was 

 grown may be an error. 



23. PRUNUS GRACILIS Engelmann and Gray 



I. Engelmann and Gray Bust. Jour. Nat. Hist. 5:243. 1845. 3 - Torrey Pac. R. Rft. 4:83. 

 1854. 3. Britton and Brown III. Fl. 2:249, fig. 1897. 



P. chicasa var. normalis. 4. Torrey and Gray Fl. N. Am. 1:407. 1840. 

 P. normalis 5. Small Fl. S. E. U. S. 572. 1903. 



Shrub low, attaining a height of five or six feet; branches many, straggling, more 

 or less spiny; branchlets at first densely tomentose or soft-pubescent, becoming glabrous; 

 leaves small, ovate-lanceolate or oval, margins finely and evenly serrate, rather thick, 

 texture harsh and firm; upper surface dark green, glabrous or nearly so at maturity, 

 lower surface paler, soft-pubescent becoming nearly glabrous; petiole short and stout. 



Flowers white, small, appearing before the leaves; borne in sessile, several -flowered 

 umbels; pedicels short, slender, soft-pubescent. 



Fruit globose or oval, very small, not more than one-half inch in diameter, variable 

 in color, mostly in shades of red; stone turgid, nearly orbicular, pointed at both ends. 



Prunus gracilis is found in dry, sandy soils from southern Kansas 

 and western Arkansas to central Texas. It grows most abundantly and 

 thrives best in Oklahoma, a fact which leads Waugh to call it the " Okla- 

 homa " plum. All who know the species agree that it is a near approach 

 to Maritima in many of its characters. This plum is very variable and 

 some of its forms seem not to have been well studied. As a fruit plant 

 Gracilis is hardly known in cultivation though Torrey says it is cultivated 

 in the region of its habitat under the name Prairie Cherry. The wild 

 fruit is used more or less locally and is sometimes offered for sale in the 

 markets of western towns. The quality is about the same as that of the 



