THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 27 



the French. The first of these terms has reference to the color, the word 

 Morello coming from the Italian meaning blackish while Griotte, from the 

 French, probably is derived through agriotte from aigre, meaning sharp, 

 in reference to the acidity of these cherries. Weichsel is the German 

 group name for these cherries, rather less commonly used than the other 

 two terms. The trees of the MoreUo-like varieties are usually smaller, 

 bushier and more compact than those of the AmareUes. The branches, 

 as a rule, are more horizontal, often drooping, are less regularly arranged 

 and are more slender. The leaves, in typical varieties, are smaller, thinner, 

 a darker green and are pendant while those of the Amarelles are either 

 inclined to be upright or horizontal; the leaves are also toothed less 

 deeply and more regtdarly. These differences in the leaves are well shown 

 in the color-plates of the varieties of the two groups. There are differ- 

 ences, also, in the inflorescence and the floral organs in the extreme types 

 but these disappear in the varieties that connect the two forms. The 

 typical varieties of this group are English Morello, Ostheim, Olivet, 

 Brusseler Braune, Vladimir and Riga. 



Attempts to give precise distinctions between the fruits and trees 

 of the two groups fail because the varieties constituting them hybridize 

 freely making it impossible, with the more or less blended characters, to 

 classify accurately. The group name indicates but little more than whether 

 the cherries have a colored or a colorless juice — a distinction weU worth 

 while for the fruit-grower. 



Ehrhart called Sovir Cherries with colorless jmce Prunus acida and 

 those with dark colored juice Prunus austera. To some extent botanists 

 have followed Ehrhart's designations. Linnaeus thought the two groups 

 sufficiently distinct to be botanical varieties of the species and denomi- 

 nated the cherry with colorless juice Prunus cerasus caproniana and the 

 one with colored juice Prunus cerasus austera. 



A third division of the species is the Marasca cherry from which is 

 made maraschino, a distilled liqueur much used in Etirope as a drink and 

 in Europe and America in the manufacture of maraschino cherries. The 

 Marasca cherry is a native of the province of Dalmatia, Austria, where 

 the trees grow wild and are now sparingly cultivated. In 1831 Host 

 gave this form the name Cerasus marasca and a year later Reichenbach 

 described it as Prunus marasca. Botanists now very generally include it in 

 the species under discussion and Schneider^ makes it a botanical variety, 



1 Schneider, C. K. Handb. Laubh. 1:615. 1906. 



