320 TREES OF MINNESOTA. 



Uses. The Black Cherry has a pretty and often a stately 

 form when growing single, and is very ornamental when in 

 flower and fruit. It is, however, liable to injuries from the 

 tent caterpillar, which is very fond of its leaves. It can often 

 be introduced to advantage into timber plantings in this section, 

 and is an object of much interest on account of its flowers and 

 fruit. It is also a good timber tree. The fruit is often used in 

 a small way for making cherry brandy and in flavoring alco- 

 holic liquors. Medicinal properties are found in the bark, es- 

 pecially in that of the branches and roots, and are readily yielded 

 to cold water, for owing to volatilization and chemical change 

 boiling water must not be used. This extract contains hydro- 

 cyanic acid, and is employed for infusions, syrups and fluid ex- 

 tracts, which are used as tonics and sedatives in the treatment 

 of pulmonary consumption and nervous debility. Cattle have 

 been frequently poisoned by eating the wilted leaves. Children 

 occasionally die -from eating the kernels of the pits or by swal- 

 lowing the fruit whole. Fresh leaves are considered harmless, 

 as the poison is formed by chemical action in the leaves after 

 being separated from the plant. The wood is valuable for 

 cabinet making and fine interior finishing, and is in great de- 

 mand, on account of its fine reddish brown color, for tripods, 

 surveyors' rods and cases, and spirit levels. It is also used 

 for printers' furniture and wood type, school apparatus, drawing 

 instruments, gunstocks. crutches, toys and tool handles. 



Prunus virginiana. Choke Cherry. 



Leaves thin, broadly oval to oblong, usually abruptly pointed. 

 Flowers in racemes (shorter and closer than in P. serotina), ap- 

 pearing in June. Fruit ripens in summer, red, turning dark 

 crimson, astringent when first colored, but later loses much of 

 its astringency and becomes sweet and edible. A small tree 

 with scented bark, rarely thirty feet high, and generally short 

 and crooked. (In this section it is generally covered with the 

 excrescences called Black Knot, which are caused by the fungus 

 Plowrightia morbosa.) 



Distribution. From Labrador to British Columbia, north to 

 within the Arctic Circle and south to Georgia, Texas and Cali- 

 fornia. Very widely distributed. In Minnesota common 

 throughout the state along banks of streams and lakeshore, 



