Handbook of Teees of the Xoexiiekn States and Canada. 417 



The Xortliern Kaniiy-bsrry is at best a small 

 tree, only under most favorable conditions at- 

 taining tlie height of 25 or 30 ft., with trunk 

 8 or 10 in. in diameter, and is commonly only 

 a shrub. When isolated from other trees it 

 develops a wide rounded top with tough tortu- 

 ous branches. The bark of trunk is of a dark- 

 - bro\\n color and fissured into prominent ridges, 

 which are more or less divided by tran.sverse 

 fissures. 



It inhabits the banks of streams, margins of 

 swamps and low rich bottom-lands, or 

 sparingl}' hill-sides where there is an abun- 

 dance of moisture, and in these localities, in 

 tlie month of Alaj', its lustrous green leaves 

 and large clusters of small white flowers are 

 sure to elicit admiration from even the casual 

 ■observer. Its blue-black fruit in autumn pre- 

 sents a new phase of beauty, which the country 

 children consider as also of utility, for they 

 delight in eating the sweet fruit. It is then 

 that the appropriateness of its names — Ui7d- 

 Raisin Tree and fiiceet-herry — is apparent. 



The wood is fine-grained, hard and heavy, a 

 cubic foot weighing 45.51 lbs., and the j'ellow- 

 ish brown heart-wood is of very disagreeable 

 and remarkably persistent odor, suggestive of 

 the odor of rancid butter. 



Lrnres ovate to oval, 2% to 5 in. long, mostly 

 rounded at Ijase and acuminate at apex, sharply 

 serrate, at maturity lustrous dark green above, 

 yellowish fireen and with minute black dots be- 

 neath : petioles wide, grooved above, the lower- 

 most wavy margined, rutous-tomentoso. Floicers 

 y^ in. broad in several-rayed cymes, .3-.'> in. across. 

 Fruit ripe in September, oblong, on drooping 

 pedicels in red stemmed clusters with thick blue- 

 black glaucous skin ; stone very flat oval or 

 orbicular. 



