ROSE FAMILY 



Flowers. — May, after the leaves. Fertect, white, borne in a many 

 flowered raceme, three to six inches long, one-half to one-third of 

 an inch in diameter. 



Calyx. — Cup-shaped, five-lobed ; lobes, short, obtuse, reflexed, 

 deciduous. 



6>ni//,r. — Petals five, wliite, orbicular, with short claws, inserted 

 on the calyx tube, imbricate in bud. 



Stamens. — Fifteen to twenty, inserted on calyx tube ; style short, 

 thick ; stigma broad. 



Pistil.— O^^LX-j one, superior, at the base of the calyx tube ; ovules 

 two. 



Fruit. — Drupe, globular, dark red, or nearly black, or yellow, with 

 shining skin, dark red flesh. In taste astringent, though there is 

 much difference in the product of different bushes. Stone oblong- 

 ovate ; cotyledons thick and fleshy. 



The Cherrie trees yeeld great store of cherries which grow on clusters like 

 grapes; they 1)6 much smaller than our English Cherrie, nothing neare so good 

 if they be not very ripe ; they so furred the mouth that the tongue will cleave to 

 the roofe, and the throate was horse with swallowing those red IBuUies (as 1 may 

 call them), being little better in taste. English ordering may bring them to be 

 an English Cherrie. but yet they are as wilde as the Indians. 



— Wood. " New England's Prospects." 



Our early writer seems to have learned all there is to 

 know about Choke Cherries, and ever)' one whose childhood 

 was spent in New England or the middle states has had a 

 similar experience. Such an one would never think of the 

 Choke Cherry as a tree. 'I'o him it is always a bush, a bush 

 of varying height growing by creek and river side, in fence 

 corners, at the edge of thickets, and bearing long clusters of 

 berries of different degrees of harshness and astringency. 

 But in that wonderful region round about Nebraska, north- 

 ern Te.xas and Indian Territory where every vegetable creat- 

 ure with the slightest aspirations toward treehood seems 

 able to gratify thein, our humble Choke Cherry stretches its 

 stem, lengthens its branches and becomes a tree. There is, 

 however, no record that by growing larger it has grown 

 better, the fruit is stiU harsh and astringent, loved, indeed, 

 by the birds, but forsaken by the children wiien they can 

 get anything better. It is recorded, tliat in the early days 

 the Indians of the north and west and central p.'^rt of the 



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