THE APPLE FAMILY. 



249 



with which it is covered. Later this drops off as the cHmate softens and 

 the leaves become more accustomed to the atmosphere. Through the gulf 

 states and along the mountains northward to New Brunswick, in swamps 

 and moist soil the shad-bush is known as a slirub, or sometimes it assumes 

 an arborescent habit and grows as high as thirty feet. A sweet, dainty mor- 

 sel is its fruit which perhaps has been relished more by the Indians than any 

 other people, and which as well as eating fresh they manipulate into a dried 

 paste to put by for winter use. Children, however, and birds are not far 

 behind them, in locating its whereabouts, and knowing just when the time 

 has come to gather its offerings. 



A. Canadensis, June-berry, May-cherry, or service berry shows its leaves 

 to be only sparsely pubescent, even when young. All through the south this 

 species seems to be known in the vernacular as the " sarvice tree," and the 

 sweet quality of its fruit is no secret. Those that find it eat it as eagerly as 

 they would cherries. It is even made into pies. The mountaineers' vigor- 

 ous method of procuring it, however, is usually to chop the tree down, so in 

 many places they are becoming rather scarce. In its best estate the June- 

 berry reaches a height of sixty feet, but usually is not over twenty-five feet 

 tall. 



POMETTE BLEUE. {Plate LXXIV.) 

 Cratckgus brachyacantha. 



FAMILY COLOUR SIZE RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Apple. White. 30-50 yVt'/". Louisiana and Texas. April. 



Flowers : borne on lateral branchlets in glabrous, compound corymbs. Ca/yx : 

 obconic, with five small, triangular, persistent sepals. Corolla : with five nearly 

 orbicular white petals, which in drying turn to a bright orange colour. Stamens : 

 usually twenty, borne on slender filaments. Fruit : which matures and drops in 

 August, subglobose; from one-third to one-half an inch in diameter ; bright blue ; 

 glaucous. Leaves : lanceolate-oblong, ovate or rhombic ; acute or rounded at the 

 apex; narrowed at the base into short petioles; crenate-serrate ; glabrous; dark 

 green and lustrous. Bar/: : dark brown, deeply furrowed and scaly. 



First discovered by the Scotch botanist and explorer Thomas Drummond, 

 but made known and its true character revealed by Dr. Charles Mohr, who, 

 some fifty years after the original discovery, gathered specimens from trees 

 growing in the vicinity of Minden, Louisiana, in the autumn of 1880. This, 

 the only blue fruited thorn in the south, is perhaps the largest and most 

 beautiful of the genus. It is called Pomette Bleue by the French Acadians 

 of Louisiana, and, on account of its symmetrical outline, pleasing foliage and 

 attractiveness of both flowers and fruit, is well deserving of a home in 

 southern gardens. 



The genus Crataegus, as treated in the copy of Chapman's P'lora of the 

 Southern United States before me, embraces descriptions of fifteen forms, 



