456 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
Sp. 4. Tue Cuoxz Cuerry. C. Virginidna. Torrey and Gray. 
A shrub or small tree, often only one or two feet high, and 
sometimes rising to twelve or fifteen. The trunk is dark colored, 
resembling an alder more than a common cherry tree ; it rarely 
attains a diameter of two or three inches, and throws out a large 
number of branches, which in May are covered with flowers, 
and in July and August are usually bent down with a profusion 
of fruit. The shoots and young branches are of an ashen gray 
or olive green, growing darker after the first year. ‘The leaves 
are broad-obovate, oblong or elliptic, rounded or sometimes 
heart-shaped at base, abruptly acuminate, sharply and finely 
serrate, smooth, green, and polished above, much lighter be- 
neath, one to four or five inches long, and of two thirds that 
width. The footstalk is one half or three fourths of an inch 
long, round, channelled above, with always 2, somctimes 4 or 
more glands a little below the base of the leaf, or at equal dis- 
tances further down. Fruit-stalks three to six inches long, 
sreen, with 2 or 3 small leaves near the base. Fruit on short 
stems, three or four lines in diameter, dark red, pleasant to the 
taste, but astringent. It differs very much on different plants; 
being sometimes very austere, sometimes very juicy and pleas- 
ant, with little astringency. 
FAMILY XXIX. THE BEAN FAMILY. LEGUMINOS. 
JUSSIEU. 
The peculiar distinction of this family is, that its flowers are 
butterfly-shaped, or its fruits in pods, and it often possesses both 
these characters. By one or the other all the plants of the 
family are known; and the butterfly-shaped flowers are a cha- 
racter not to be mistaken, as they are found in no other family. 
It includes herbs, shrubs and trees. The leaves, which are 
usually compound, rarely simple, have commonly two stipules 
at the base, and the branches have often projecting ribs, or 
