60 FAMILIAR TKBBS 



semilunate or nearly elliptical in Prunus and very 

 slightly extended . . . and the exudations of gum so 

 common in Prunus are not found in Pyrus and its 

 allies." 



Though we cannot look for any nice discrimina- 

 tion of merely specific characters in the early times in 

 which most of our genuinely vernacular plant-names 

 had their origin, it is remarkable that for so con- 

 spicuously beautiful a group of trees as the Cherries, 

 with the exception of the Gean, all the common forms 

 of the name are derivatives from the Latin Cerasus. 

 No doubt the Komans first introduced the cultivation 

 of the tree as an orchard fruit into Britain, and thus 

 their name gave rise to the " Ceris beam " of the 

 Anglo-Saxon, and the " Cherry '' of our Normanised 

 modern English; but, though we read of cherries 

 being hawked in the streets of London in 1415, it is 

 also said that in the " Dark Ages " this cultivation was 

 lost, and that the tree was again introduced from 

 Flanders in the time of Henry VIII. Certainly, 

 though he can hardly be noted as referring to its 

 cultivation, Shakespeare was perfectly familiar with 

 the Cherry, the main ideas associated with it in his 

 mind being, to judge from A Midsuminer Night's 

 BreaTTi, the close resemblance of one fruit on the tree 

 to another — as we say, " like two peas in a pod " — 

 and the union in diversity of the two stalks that 

 so often separate themselves from the rest of the 

 umbel, each bearing its cherry, like sisters growing 

 up together, or like two ruby lips inviting kisses. 



What dweller in the country is ignorant of the 

 charms of the wild Cherry ? One of the early cheer- 



