B26 TREES OF MINNESOTA. 
Uses —The Black Cherry has a pretty and often a stately 
form when growing single, and is very ornamental when in 
flower and fruit. It is, however, liable to injuries from the 
tent caterpillar, which is very fond of its leaves. It can often 
be introduced to advantage into timber plantings in this section. 
and is an object of much interest on account of its flowers and 
fruit. It is also a good timber tree. The fruit is often used in 
a small way for making cherry brandy and in flavoring alco- 
holic liquors. Medicinal properties are found in the bark, es- 
pecially in that of the branches and roots, and are readily yielded 
to cold water, for owing to volatilization and chemical change 
boiling water must not be used. This extract contains hydro- 
cyanic acid, and is employed for infusions, syrups and fluid ex- 
tracts, which are used as tonics and sedatives in the treatment 
of pulmonary consumption and nervous debility. Cattle have 
been frequently poisoned by eating the wilted leaves. Children 
occasionally die from eating the kernels of the pits or by swal- 
lowing the fruit whole. Fresh leaves are considered harmless, 
as the poison is formed by chemical action in the leaves after 
being separated from the plant. The wood is valuable for 
cabinet making and fine interior finishing, and is in great de- 
mand, on account of its fine reddish brown color, for tripods, 
surveyors’ rods and cases, and spirit levels. It is also used 
for printers’ furniture and wood type, school apparatus, drawing 
instruments, gunstocks, crutches, toys and tool handles. 
Prunus virginiana. Choke Cherry. 
Leaves thin, broadly oval to oblong, usually abruptly pointed. 
Flowers in racemes (shorter and closer than in P. serotina), ap- 
pearing in June. Fruit ripens in summer, red, turning dark 
crimson, astringent when first colored, but later loses much of 
its astringency and becomes sweet and edible. A small tree 
with scented bark, rarely thirty feet high, and generally short 
and crooked. (In this section it is generally covered with the 
excrescences called Black Knot, which are caused by the fungus 
Plowrightia morbosa.) 
Distribution.—From Wabrador to British Columbia, north to 
within the Arctic Circle and south to Georgia, Texas and Cali- 
fornia. Very widely distributed. In Minnesota common 
throughout the state along banks of streams and lakeshore, 
