TREES AND SHRUBS. 



PBU^US EETICULATA, Sarg. 



Prunus (Prunophora) reticulata, n. sp. 



Leaves oblong-ovate to slightly obovate or elliptical, gradually or abruptly narrowed and 

 acuminate at the apex, rounded or cuneate and frequently slightly unsymmetrical at the entire 

 base often furnished above the insertion of the petiole on each side with a small stipitate gland, 

 and coarsely, often doubly serrate above, with broad, straight, or slightly incurved apiculate teeth ; 

 at maturity light yellow-green and roughened by short white hairs on the upper surface, lighter- 

 colored and soft-pubescent on the lower surface, from 6 to 9 centimetres long and from 3 to 5.5 cen- 

 timetres wide, with stout midribs and slender primary veins covered with long pale or rusty hairs, 

 and numerous prominent reticulate veinlets deeply impressed on the upper side of the leaf ; petioles 

 stout, pubescent, glandular at the apex, with one or two collateral dark stipitate glands, or eglan- 

 dular, about 1.5 centimetres in length. Flowers from 1.4 to 1.5 centimetres in diameter, fragrant, 

 appearing before the leaves, on slender villose pedicels from 5 to 7 millimetres in length, in mostly 

 three- to five-flowered umbels ; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, coated below with long matted pale 

 hairs and pubescent above the middle, the lobes entire, narrow and rounded or acute and occasion- 

 ally slightly lobed at the apex, thickly coated with long pale matted hairs, reflexed after anthesis ; 

 petals white, nearly orbicular, gradually narrowed at the base ; anthers yellow. Fruit on slightly hairy 

 pedicels, subglobose, dull red, covered by a thick white bloom, from 1.8 to 2.2 centimetres in diame- 

 ter, with a thick hard skin and thin bitter astringent flesh ; stone suborbicular, compressed, rounded 

 at the base, narrowed and rounded or acute and slightly ridged at the apex, thin and obscurely 

 ridged on the dorsal edge, deeply or only slightly grooved on the thin ventral edge, from 1.3 

 to 1.5 centimetres long and nearly as broad. 



A tree, from 10 to 12 metres high, with a tall trunk covered with dark scaly bark, large spread- 

 ing and ascending branches forming an irregular head, and slender glabrous branchlets dull yellow- 

 brown early in their first season, becoming bright chestnut-brown, very lustrous and marked by 

 numerous small reticulate pale lenticels in their first winter, and dark gray-brown the following 

 year ; winter-buds acute, their scales acute, dark red, ciliate on the margins, 3 or 4 millimetres 

 long; leaf-scars horizontal, prominent, pubescent on the rim, displaying three fibro-vascular 

 bundle-scars, the central scar more prominent than the others. Flowers about the middle of 

 March. Fruit ripens late in September and in October. 



Grayson County, Texas, in the neighborhood of Denison, on uplands and near the borders of 

 river bottoms, common. T. V. Munson and C. S. Sargent, March 25 and October 1, 1909, 

 T. V. Munson, June 23, 1910 (No. 4, type), two miles west of Sherman, T. V. Munson, Sep- 

 tember, 1910 (all in herb. Arnold Arboretum). 



This is one of several Texas tree plums which usually have heen confounded with Prunus americuna, Marshall. 

 They differ from that species, however, in the shape of the stone of the fruit and in the fact that they do not produce 

 suckers, which is one of the characteristics of Prunus americana and its allies. From other American plum trees 

 Prunus reticulata differs in its thick leaves with conspicuous reticulate veinlets. 



The first account of this tree appeared in Munson's Forests and Forest Trees of Texas issued in July, 1883, in 

 Hough's American Journal of Forestry, p. 443, where it is doubtfully referred on the authority of Mr. Thomas 

 Meehan to Prunus umbellata, Elliott, and where it is pointed out that it could not be, as had usually been supposed, 

 Prunus americana, and that it did not agree with the published description of Prunus umbellata. 



Further investigation is needed to determine the variation and distribution of this tree, which probably has a wide 

 range in northern and central Texas. 



C. S. S. 



