THE PLUAl FAMILY. 253 



P. serdtina, wild black cherry, rum cherry or cabinet cherry grows at its 

 best to be a large hue tree when, as is well known, its timber of lirm texture 

 and splendid colour is much valued for use in cabinet work. On the slopes 

 of the Alleghanies, where it thus appears and where once its lustrous bright 

 foliage, gay yellow in the autumn, made it a familiar individual it is now but 

 little seen except as small individuals, and throughout its range it is steadily 

 falling under the axe. In the bud its leaves are folded together lengthwise 

 and not until they are well grown do the dainty, long racemes of bloom un- 

 fold. To the round black fruit there is a pleasant, vinous flavour and often 

 housewives prepare with it a good although rather insidious drink. From 

 the bark of the tree, collected ni the autumn, an aromatic, bitter tonic is 

 made, and is of considerable repute for benefitting pulmonary troubles 



P. Virginiana^ choke cherry, a bushy spreading shrub, seldom over 

 fifteen feet high, grows along roadsides and rocky banks in the mountains 

 of North Carolina and northward. Its erect compact racemes of delicate 

 white blossoms terminate the season's shoots while later in drooping, 

 heavy ones hang reddish drupes finally turning to black. Most decorative 

 are they and full of fine rich colour before they become the orthodox tone 

 at maturity. Both the bark and drupes are very astringent and much used 

 in medicinal ways. 



P. Pennsylvanica, wild red cherry, bird, or pigeon cherry, which when 

 well grown is quite a shapely, rounded tree, has long branches prolific 

 in the season with fine white blossoms hanging on slender pedicels in 

 corymbs, and produced from lateral buds. By this, its inflorescence, it is 

 distinguished from the three already mentioned cherries, the flowers of 

 which all grow in racemes. Its lustrous leaves are gracefully shaped, often 

 of a bluish tint of green and retain always a somewhat crinkled edge from 

 their position when folded lengthwise in the bud. The small, sour and 

 bright red fruit is probably known to us all. While occurring southward as 

 far as Georgia and in the Alleghanies on such high mountains as Grand- 

 father, the wild red cherry is in general a northern tree. 



Primus injitcilnda. {Plate LXXVII^ 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Flam. White. Faint. Gcoroia and Alabama. Afril. 



Fruit: July. 



Ficr.uers: growing on long thread-like pedicels in prolific lateral clusters and 

 appearing before the leaves.^ GjIvx: with five spreading, pointed lobes. CorolL^ : 

 with five rounded petals, narrowed into claws, early falling. Shuiitiis .• numerous, 

 exserted. Fruit: an oblong, purplish drupe, glaucous. Lra-rs: simple, oval, 

 pointed at the apex and tapering, or rounded at the base ; finely serrate, bright 

 green and glabrous above, pubescent underneath. Bark: dark, and with many 

 orange coloured excrescences. 



