58 BULLETIN 179, U. 8. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
above, pale and strongly pubescent and reticulate below, the margin 
finely serrate with acute or sometimes obtuse teeth, these gland 
tipped when young, the blades with or without a gland on either side 
near the base; petioles 5 to 8 mm. long, pubescent and eglandular, or 
with one or two glands near the apex. Flowers 9 or 10 mm. broad, 
appearing before the leaves from the middle of March to-about the 
middle of April, in umbels of 2 to 4; pedicels and calyx finely pubes- | 
cent, the pedicels 7 to 10 mm. long; calyx tube campanulate, 2.5 
mm. long, the lobes ovate and acute, entire or minutely dentate | 
toward the apex, 1.5 to 2 mm. long, eglandular, pubescent on both | 
surfaces; petals obovate to obovate-orbicular, 4 to 5 mm. long and | 
about 3 mm. broad. Fruit globose or slightly oval, 14 to 18 mm. in | 
diameter, usually red, with a light bloom, ripening from the middle | 
of June in the South to early in August and said to be quite palatable; : 
stone oval (Pl. XII, figs. 20 and 21), about 13 mm. long, 9 mm. | 
broad, and 6 mm. thick, somewhat obtuse at the ends, a thick wing | 
on the ventral edge, with a groove on either side and a shallow groove | 
along the dorsal edge, the surface nearly smooth. 
Prunus gracilis is a small, straggling shrub 1 to 4 feet high, growing | 
in scattered clumps or forming loose thickets; bark of the stem | 
grayish, that of the young twigs pubescent, dull reddish brown | 
turning to gray during the first winter. | 
Its area of distribution (fig. 3) is from northern Oklahoma and | 
the extreme western part of Arkansas southward to the Colorado | 
River, in Texas. The Tennessee locality frequently cited appears : 
to be based on the young foliage of Prunus mexicana. | 
The following note is taken from a specimen labeled ‘‘ Arkansas | 
River, Ind. Terr., 1882.’’ 
It seldom attains a greater height than 4 feet and when in full fruitage lays down | 
upon the grass beneath it, vinelike. The fruit is larger when found on larger shrubs. 
It abounds only on sandy soil and delights in a sand bluff. Millions of this fruit 
grow on the Arkansas River and its tributaries in Kansas [?] and the Indian Territory. 
It is finely flavored and of every shade of color when ripe; different specimens ripen | 
at different dates, so ‘‘plum season” is a long one. 
Mr. T. V. Munson says it is especially subject to the attacks of | 
the ‘‘black-knot” fungus (Plowrightia morbosa (Schw.) Sacc.), and | 
for that reason he endeavored to destroy a small thicket growing in | 
his nursery at Denison, Tex. a 
Prunus chicasa as was described from “Texas and Arkansas, | 
Dr. Leavenworth; Texas, Drummond.” These specimens are in the |} 
herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden. That of Drummond 
from Texas is P. gracilis. Dr. Leavenworth’s Arkansas specimen 
is labeled ‘‘ Prunus chicasa8. Prairies of Arkansas, April,’ and appears | 
to be P. angustifolia. The Texas sheet of this collector has two spect 
mens, one in flower, which is P. gracilis, and the other with foliage — 
and fruit, which does not _appear,to.be.this species. P. gracilis | 
