154 TREES 



brewed beverage, are made from the heavy -clustered fruits 

 that hang until late summer, turning black and losing 

 their astringency when dead ripe. 



From Ontario to Dakota, and south to Florida and 

 Texas, this tree is found, reaching its best estate in moist, 

 rich soil, but climbing mountam canyons at elevations 

 of from five to seven thousand feet. A worthy shade and 

 park tree, the black cherry is charmingly unconventional, 

 carrying its mass of drooping foliage with the grace of a 

 willow, its satiny brown bark curling at the edges of 

 irregular plates like that of the cherry birch. 



The Choke Cherry 

 P. Virginiana, Linn. 



The choke cherry is a miniature tree no higher than a 

 thrifty lilac bush, from the Eastern states to the Mississippi, 

 but between Nebraska and northern Texas it reaches 

 thirty-five feet in height. The trunk is always short, 

 often crooked or leaning, and never exceeds one foot 

 in diameter. Its shiny bark, long racemed flowers and 

 fruit, and the pungent odor of its leaves and bark might 

 lead one to confuse it with a black cherry sapling. But 

 there is a marked difference between the two species. 

 The choke cherry's odor is not only pungent, but rank 

 and disagreeable besides. The leaf of the choke cherry 

 is a wide and abruptly pointed oval. The fruit until 

 dead ripe is red or yellow, and so puckery, harsh, and 

 bitter that children, who eat the black cherries eagerly, 

 cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second time. 



Birds are not so fastidious; they often strip the trees 

 before the berries darken. It is probably by these un- 



