152 TREES 



cultivated varieties of Japanese plums have enriched the 

 horticulture of our West Coast. 



The almond, now grown commercially in California, is 

 the one member of the genus prunus whose flesh is dry and 

 woody, and whose pit is a commercial nut. 



THE CHERRIES 



Small-fruited members of the genus prunus, wild and 

 cultivated, are grouped under the popular name, cherries, 

 by common consent. The pie cherry of New-England gar- 

 dens is prunus cerasus, Linn. It often runs wild from gar- 

 dens, forming roadside thickets, with small sour red fruits, 

 as nearly worthless as at home in the wilds of Europe and 

 Asia. This tree has, through cultivation, given rise to 

 two groups of sour cherries cultivated in America. The 

 early, light-red varieties, with uncolored juice, of which the 

 Early Richmond is a familiar type, and the late, dark-red 

 varieties, with colored juice, of which the English Morello 

 is the type. 



The sweet cherry of Europe (P. Avium, Linn.) has given 

 us our cultivated sweet cherries, whose fruit is more or less 

 heart-shaped. 



Japan celebrates each spring the festival of cherry blos- 

 som time, a great national fete, when the gardens burst 

 suddenly into the marvelous bloom of Sakura, the cherry 

 tree, symbol of happiness, in which people of all classes de- 

 light. The native species (P. pseudo-Cerasus) , has been 

 cultivated by Japanese artist-gardeners in the one direction 

 of beauty for centuries. Not in flowers alone, but in leaf, 

 in branching habit, and even in bark, beauty has been the 



