TREES AND SHRUBS 89 



AMYGDALACEAE. Almond Family 



Trees or shrubs with alternate petiolate, simple, mostly ser- 

 rate leaves and fugacious stipules; bark, leaves and seeds bitter 

 with prussie acid; flowers perfect, solitary, fascicled,, corymbose, 

 or racemose; hypanthium mostly spheroidal, free from the simple 

 and solitary ovary; sepals and petals 5; stamens mostly numerous; 

 fruit a drupe. 



Flowers in long racemes, on short leafy 



branches r'. the year. 1. Padus. 



Flowers in corymbs or umbels on short stems 

 of the preceding year, preceding the leaves. 

 Stone of the fruit flattened, with more or 



less acute edges. 2. Prunus. 



Stone of the fruit spheroidal, little or not at 



all flattened. 3. Cerasus. 



I. PADUS. Choke Cherry 



Large shrubs or small trees with smooth, dark-colored bark 

 and alternate, simple, petiolate, deciduous leaves; flowers numerous, 

 in elongated racemes terminating short leafy branches of the year; 

 hypanthium spheroidal, sometimes campanulate; sepals 5, short, per- 

 sistent or deciduous with a part of the hypanthium; petals 5, white, 

 with the numerous stamens on the throat of the hypanthium; car- 

 pels solitary; ovary 1-celled, 2-ovuled; drupe small, usually 1 em. 

 in diameter or less, astringent, not glaucous. 



2. PRUNUS L. Plum 



A low treelike shrub 10 feet high or less, forming thickets; 

 branches stout, rigid, divaricate, somewhat spiny; bark grayish; 

 leaves elliptic, obovate, somewhat abruptly long acuminate, sharply 

 serrate, glabrous; flowers white, abundantly produced before the 

 leaves; fruit ellipsoidal, about % inch long, yellowish red, with pleas- 

 ant, rather tart flavor; stone flattened acute on both edges. 



1. P. americana. 



3. CERASUS. Cherry 



A small slender tree 10 to 12 feet high, with smooth purplish 

 or reddish brown bark, slender virgate branches, small leaves, and 



