THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 69 



In fruit-growing, the Miner-like plums behave m general much like 

 the Americana pliims. In some respects the fruits are an improvement 

 upon those of the Americana varieties. For example the skin in the Miner- 

 like varieties is usually less tough; is brighter in color and the flavor, 

 in most cases, is a little better. These plums seem to be nearly or quite as 

 hardy as the Americanas and are adapted to quite as wide a range of soils. 

 Presumably they have the same value as stocks, though they seem not to 

 have been tried for this purpose and they should have equal value at least 

 in plant -breeding. The trees of the Miner-like plums are rather more 

 amenable to domestication than those of Prunus americana having as 

 orchard plants straighter trunks, more sjmimetrical and less unkempt tops 

 and making larger trees. The fruits ripen so late as to make the varieties 

 of this group especially valuable in prolonging the season for pliims in 

 regions where native varieties are grown exclusively. About twenty 

 varieties of this sub-species are under ctiltivation. 



12. PRUNUS NIGRA Aiton 



I. Aiton Hort. Kew. 2:165. 1789. 2. Sims Bot. Mag. 1117. 1808. 3. Pursh Fl. Am. Sept. 

 1:331. 1814. 4. Torrey Fl. U. S. 1:469. 1824. 5. Sargent Silva N. Am. 4:15, PL 149. 1892. 

 6. Small Torrey Bot. Club Bui. 21:301. 1894. 



Cerasus nigra. 7. Loiseleur Nouveau Duhamel 5:32. 1812. 



P. americana (in part). 8. Torrey and Gray Fl. N. Am. 1:407. 1840. 9. Torrey Fl. N. Y. 

 1:194. 1843. ^°- Emerson Trees of Mass. Ed. 2, 2:511. 1846. 11. Nuttall Silva 2:19. 1852. 

 12. Sargent loth Cen. U. S. 9:65. 1883. 13. Watson and Coulter Gray's Man. Ed. 6:151. 1889. 

 14. Gray For. Trees N. A. 46, PL 1891. 



P. americana nigra. 15. Waugh Vt. Sta. Bui. 53:60, fig. 1896. 16. Ibid. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 

 10:102. 1897. 17. Bailey Cyc. Am. Hort. 1449. 1901. 



P. mollis. 18. Torrey Fl. U. S. 1:470. 1824. 



Tree small, seldom exceeding twenty feet in height; trunk attaining six or eight 

 inches in diameter, bearing the head at three to five feet from the ground; bark thin, 

 one-quarter inch thick, from dark red to a light gray-brown, rough, but not shaggy, 

 surface covered with thick scales; branches upright, stout, rigid, forming a compact 

 rather narrow head, armed with stout, spiny spurs; branchlets more or less zigzag, 

 glabrous or tomentose, green, later becoming reddish-brown; lenticels few or many, 

 pale, slightly raised. 



Winter-buds of medium size, conical or long-acuminate, reddish-brown; leaves 

 large, broad-oval, ovate or obovate, with a long acuminate apex and cuneate or sub- 

 cordate base; margins doubly crenate-serrate with teeth tipped with glands which 

 disappear as the leaves mature ; thin and firm in texture ; upper surface light green, 

 glabrous, the under surface paler, pubescent when young and pubescent at maturity 

 on some soils; midribs coarse but veins rather slender; petioles two-thirds inch long, 

 rather stout, with two, sometimes but one, large, dark red glands near the blade. 



