THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 43 



writing about 300 years before the Christian era in his History of Plants, 

 is, according to botanical historians, the first of the Greek writers to 

 mention the che ry. His statement is as follows: — 



" The cherry is a peculiar tree, of large size, some attaining the height 

 of twenty-four cubits, rather thick, so that they may measure two cubits 

 in circumference at the base. The leaf is like that of the mespilus, rather 

 firm and broader, the color of the foliage such that the tree may be 

 distinguished from others at a good distance. The bark, by its color, 

 smoothness and thickness, is like that of tilia. The flower [meaning, the 

 cluster of flowers] is white, resembling that of the pear and mespilus, con- 

 sisting of small [separate] flowers. The fruit is red, similar to that of 

 diospyros [but what his diospyros was no one knows] of the size of a 

 faba [perhaps nelumbo seed], which is hard, but the cherry is soft. The 

 tree grows in the same situations as tilia; by streams."^ 



From this passage we gather that the cherry Theophrastus knew was 

 the Sweet Cherry, Prunus avium; the description shows it to be the same 

 large, tall treee now naturalized in open woods and along roadsides in 

 many parts of the United States. From the fact that Theophrastus 

 describes the tree and the bark in more detail than the fruit we may 

 assume that the cherry was more esteemed in ancient Greece as a timber- 

 tree than as a fruit-tree. Curiously enough the name the Greeks at this 

 time used for the Sweet Cherry is now applied to Prunus cerasus, the Sour 

 Cherry. 



" Kerasos " was the Sweet Cherry in ancient Greece and from kerasos 

 came cerasus, used by many botanists as the name of the genus. That 

 the Sweet Cherry should by the use of avium be denominated the " bird 

 cherry " is clear since birds show much discrimination between cherries, 

 but why the Sour Cherry should be given the specific name cerasus, first 

 applied to the Sweet Cherry, is not apparent. 



Pages are written in the old pomologies and botanical histories as 

 to the origin of the word cerasus. Pliny's statement that Lucullus called 

 the cherry cerasus from the town from which he obtained it, Kerasun in 

 Pontus, on the Black Sea, is, in the light of all who have since looked into 

 the matter, a misconception. To the contrary, commentators now agree 

 that the town received its name from the cherry which grows most abun- 

 dantly in the forests in that part of Asia Minor. The name, according 

 to all authorities, is very ancient — a linguistic proof of the antiquity of 

 the cherry. 



'Theophrastus, Book III, Chap. 13. 



