ROSE FAMILY 
Flowers.—May, after the leaves. Yerfect, 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. 
Corolla.—Petals five, white, 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.—Ovary 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 be 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 Bullies (as I 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. 
—Woop. ‘ New England's Prospects.’ 
, 
Our early writer seems to have learned all there is to 
know about Choke Cherries, and every 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 asa tree. To 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 Texas and Indian Territory where every vegetable creat- 
ure with the slightest aspirations toward treehood seems 
able to gratify them, 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 still harsh and astringent, loved, indeed, 
by the birds, but forsaken by the children when they can 
get anything better. It is recorded, that in the early days 
the Indians of the north and west and central part of the 
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