THE PLTOIS 149 



spring landscape with its rose-colored, spicy-scented blos- 

 soms. The little trees huddle together, their flat tops 

 often matted and reaching out sidewise from under the 

 shade of the other forest trees. The twigs are crabbed in- 

 deed in winter, but they silver over with the young foliage 

 in April. The coral flower buds sprinkle the new leaves, 

 and through May a great burst of rose-colored bloom 

 overspreads the tree- tops. It is not sweetness merely 

 that these flowers exhale, but an exquisite, spicy, 

 stimulating fragrance, by which one always remembers 

 them. 



The pioneers made jellies and preserves out of the little 

 green apples {see illustrations^ pages 150-151), which lost 

 some of their acrid quality by hanging on until after a good 

 frost. There are those who still gather these fruits as their 

 parents and grandparents did. In their opinion the wild 

 tang and the indescribable piquancy of flavor in jellies 

 made from this fruit are unmatched by those of any other 

 fruit that grows. 



THE PLUMS 



The genus prunus belongs to the rose family and in- 

 cludes shrubs and trees with stone fruits. Of the over 

 one hundred species, thirty are native to North x\mer- 

 Ica; but ten of them assume tree form, and all but one 

 are small trees. Related to them are the garden cherries 

 and plums, native to other countries, and the peach, the 

 apricot, and tlie almond, found in this country only in hor- 

 ticultural varieties. The wood of prunus is close-grained, 

 solid, and durable, and a few of the species are ini])()rtant 

 timber trees. The simplest way to identify a member of 



