TREES AND SHRUBS. 



PRUNUS TENUIFOLIA, Saeg. 



Prunus (Prunophora) tenuifolia, n. sp. 



Leaves oblong to oblong-obovate or elliptical, gradually narrowed and acute or acuminate and 

 often abruptly long-pointed at the apex, cuneate or narrowed and rounded at the base, and finely 

 often doubly serrate, with teeth pointing to the apex of the leaf ; at maturity thin, dark yellow- 

 green and sparingly covered above with short soft white hairs, paler and soft-pubescent below 

 especially on the slender yellow midribs and seven or eight pairs of thin primary veins connected 

 by occasional cross veinlets, from 8 to 10 centimetres long and from 3 to 5 centimetres wide ; 

 petioles slender, pubescent, becoming puberulous or nearly glabrous, glandular near the apex, with 

 one to three prominent dark glands or eglandular. Flowers 2 centimetres in diameter, on slender 

 pedicels furnished near the apex with a few long white hairs, and from 1 to 2 centimetres in 

 length, in two- to four-flowered sessile umbels ; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, glabrous with the 

 exception of occasional long scattered white hairs near the base, their lobes narrow, entire or 

 minutely dentate near the rounded apex, ciliate on the margins, pubescent on the outer surface, 

 densely villose on the inner surface, reflexed after anthesis ; petals white, ovate-oblong, narrowed 

 and rounded at the apex, crenulate above the middle, gradually narrowed below into a short claw ; 

 anthers yellow. Fruit on stout slightly hairy or glabrous pedicels, oblong or oblong-obovate, red, 

 covered with a thick glaucous bloom, from 1.5 to 1.8 centimetres long and from 1.2 to 1.4 centi- 

 metres in diameter, with a thick skin and thin flesh ; stone oblong, compressed, pointed at the ends, 

 slightly sulcate at the apex, unsymmetrical, ridged on the full and rounded dorsal edge, with a 

 broad thin ridge, thin nearly straight and only slightly grooved on the ventral edge, from 1.5 to 

 1.7 centimetres long and about 1.2 centimetres wide. 



A tree, often 10 metres high, with a tall trunk usually about 3 but occasionally as much as 

 4.5 decimetres in diameter, covered like the stout spreading branches with thick pale gray bark 

 broken into long thick plate-like scales, and stout or slender glabrous branchlets light orange- 

 green when they first appear, becoming light gray or reddish brown and lustrous at the end of 

 their first season and dark dull reddish brown the following year. Flowers from the middle 

 to the end of March. Fruit ripens in June. 



Dry oak woods between Jacksonville and Larissa, Cherokee County, Texas, C. S. Sargent, 

 March 24, 1910 (No. 2 type), T. V. Munson, May 18, 1910 ; Larissa, C. S. Sargent, March 24, 

 1910 (No. 6 with stout branchlets), T. V. Munson, May 18, 1910 ; in low ground and rich soil 

 near Mt. Selma, Cherokee County, Texas, T. V. Munson, May 18, 1910. 



Prunus tenuifolia is well distinguished by the pale deeply furrowed bark of the trunk and young branches, by the 

 thin leaves and by the occasional long hairs on the pedicels and at the base of the calyx-tubes. The oblong-obovate 

 fruit and the thin flat stone differ in shape from those of the other Texas tree plums. 



c. s. s. 



