Part 73

Leaves oval to semiorbicular or obovate, rounded or acute at apex, cuneate, rounded or occasionally somewhat cordate at the narrow base, revolute on the margins, entire below, coarsely sinuate-dentate above the middle with slender teeth tipped with minute dark glands, when they unfold covered above with soft pale hairs and below with thick hoary tomentum, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green, lustrous and villose or nearly glabrous on the upper surface, pale-tomentose on the lower surface, 1½′—2′ long, and 1′—1½′ wide, with prominent primary veins running obliquely to the point of the teeth, and, like the stout midrib, conspicuously impressed on the upper side; petioles stout, hoary-tomentose, about ¼′ in length; stipules acuminate, scarious, covered on the margins with long white hairs, ¼′ long. Flowers appearing early in March, nearly sessile, in 1—5 usually 4 or 5-flowered clusters, hoary-tomentose, ½′—¾′ long; calyx broad, glabrous on the inner surface; anthers tomentose. Fruit: mature calyx, light reddish brown, villose-pubescent, deeply cleft at apex, ½′ long; akene slightly ridged on the back, ⅓′ in length, covered with long lustrous white hairs; style 1½′—2′ in length.

A tree, occasionally 25° high, with a trunk often inclining, usually much contorted, 2′—10′ in diameter and 6°—8° long, stout wide-spreading branches, and stout branchlets, hoary-tomentose when they first appear, marked by numerous small scattered lenticels, bright reddish brown during two or three years, ultimately dark gray-brown and conspicuously roughened by the enlarged ring-like leaf-scars. Bark light gray, sometimes slightly broken by shallow fissures and marked by irregular cream-colored blotches.

Distribution. Steep sides of a deep narrow arroyo on the south coast of Santa Catalina Island, California.

2. Cercocarpus alnifolius Rydb.

_Cercocarpus parvifolius_ Sarg., in part, not Nutt.

Leaves occasionally persistent until late in the spring, oval to slightly obovate, rounded or rarely acute at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, and coarsely serrate above the middle with broad apiculate teeth, when they unfold covered above with soft white hairs and pale and villose on the midrib and veins below, and at maturity thick, glabrous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and yellow-green on the lower surface, 1½′—2½′ long, and 1′—2′ wide, with a stout midrib and 6—7 pairs of slender prominent veins; petioles stout, sparingly villose early in the season, soon glabrous, ⅓′—½′ long; stipules ovate, abruptly long-pointed, covered with silky white hairs. Flowers on slender hairy pedicels ⅓′—½′ long, in 2—15 usually 4 or 5-flowered clusters; calyx-tube villose, about 5/12′ long, the limb villose on the outer surface, ¼′ broad. Fruit: mature calyx-tube many-nerved, deeply cleft at apex, villose-pubescent, dark chestnut-brown, ⅓′—½′ long; akene covered with long silky hairs; style 2′—2½′ in length.

A tree, 12°—20° high, with one or two or three trunks, occasionally 8′ in diameter, small erect and spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets green and sparingly villose when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, and in their second year chestnut-brown and lustrous and marked by minute pale lenticels. Bark about ¼′ thick, dark reddish brown, fissured and divided into small closely appressed scales.

Distribution. Hillsides, Descanso Cañon, about a mile and a half up the coast west of Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, and on Santa Cruz Island, California.

3. Cercocarpus betuloides Nutt.

_Cercocarpus parvifolius_ var. _betuloides_ Sarg.

Leaves obovate to oval, acute or rounded at apex, cuneate at base, finely serrate above the middle with straight or incurved glandular teeth, dark green on the upper surface, pale and villose-pubescent or tomentose sometimes becoming nearly glabrous on the lower surface, 1′—1¼′ long, and ⅓′—½′ wide, with a thin midrib, and 5—8 pairs of slender primary veins more or less deeply impressed on the upper side of the leaf; petioles densely villose, often becoming glabrous, about ¼′ in length; stipules scarious, acuminate. Flowers nearly sessile, in 1—3-flowered clusters; calyx-tube densely villose, about ⅓′ long, the limb turbinate, villose on the outer surface, glabrous on the inner surface, ¼′ wide. Fruit on slender slightly villose pedicels ¼′—⅓′ in length; mature calyx-tube often slightly gibbous, deeply cleft at apex, light chestnut-brown, sparingly villose, 1/12′ in diameter; akene covered with stiff spreading hairs; style 2′—3′ in length.

A tree, occasionally 25° high, with a single trunk, small ascending and spreading branches forming an open irregular head, and slender red-brown branchlets covered when they first appear with loose pubescence, soon becoming glabrous; more often a tall or low shrub with several stems. Bark smooth, separating into thin deciduous scales.

Distribution. Common and widely distributed over the California coast ranges from Siskiyou County to the Santa Monica and San Bernardino Mountains.

4. Cercocarpus ledifolius Nutt.

Leaves narrow-lanceolate, lance-elliptic or oblanceolate, acute at the ends, apiculate, entire with thick revolute margins, coriaceous, reticulate-veined, puberulous while young, and at maturity dark green, lustrous and glabrous on the upper surface and pale or rufous and tomentulose on the lower surface, resinous, ½′—1′ long, and ⅓′—⅔′ wide, with a broad thick midrib deeply grooved on the upper side, and obscure primary veins; persistent until the end of their second summer; petioles broad, about ⅛′ in length; stipules nearly triangular. Flowers solitary, sessile in the axils of the clustered leaves, ⅔′ long; calyx hoary-tomentose. Fruit: mature calyx-tube almost ½′ long, nearly cylindric, rather larger above than below, 10-ribbed, obscurely 10-angled, slightly cleft at apex, hoary-tomentose; akene pointed at the ends, obscurely angled, chestnut-brown, ¼′ long, covered with long pale or tawny hairs; style 2′—3′ in length, generally contracted by 1 or 2 partial corkscrew twists.

A resinous slightly aromatic tree, occasionally 40° high, with a short trunk sometimes 2½° in diameter, stout spreading usually contorted branches forming a round compact head, and red-brown branchlets coated at first with pale pubescence, soon becoming glabrous, frequently covered with a glaucous bloom, silver gray or dark brown in their second year, and for many years marked by the conspicuous elevated leaf-scars. Bark red-brown, divided by deep broad furrows, and broken on the surface into thin persistent plate-like scales, becoming on old trunks 1′ thick. Wood bright clear red or rich dark brown, with thin yellow sapwood of 15—20 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Dry gravelly arid slopes at altitudes of 5000°—9000°; mountain ranges of the interior region of the United States from eastern Washington and Oregon, to lower Green and Snake River valleys, Wyoming, and through Utah and Nevada to southwestern Colorado; in California to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, the northern slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains, on Mt. Pinos, San Diego County, and on the northern coast mountains (Snow Mountain to Scott Mountain, _Jepson_).

5. Cercocarpus paucidentatus Britt.

_Cercocarpus eximius_ Rydb.

Leaves oblong-obovate to narrow-elliptic, acute or rounded and often apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed from above the middle and acute at base, their margins revolute, often undulate, and entire or dentate toward the apex with few small straight or incurved apiculate teeth, when they unfold coated with hoary tomentum, and at maturity thick, gray-green and covered with soft white hairs or nearly glabrous on the upper surface, pale and tomentulose on the lower surface, ½′—1′ long and ¼′—½′ wide, with a thin prominent midrib and primary veins; petioles stout, tomentose, ultimately pubescent or nearly glabrous, 1/16′—⅕′ in length; stipules linear-lanceolate, tomentose, about half as long as the petioles. Flowers appearing from March to May and often again in August, nearly sessile, solitary, in pairs or rarely in 3-flowered clusters in the axils of the crowded leaves; calyx-tube slender, ⅙′—¼′ long, thickly covered on the outer surface, like the short rounded lobes, with long white hairs. Fruit: mature calyx-tube short-stalked, light red-brown, villose, deeply cleft at apex, about ¼′ long; akene nearly terete, covered with long white hairs; style 1′—1½′ in length.

A tree, 20°—25° high, with a long straight trunk sometimes 6′—8′ in diameter, erect rigid branches forming a narrow open or irregular head, and slender bright red-brown lustrous branchlets marked irregularly by large scattered pale lenticels, covered at first with a thick coat of hoary tomentum, villose or pubescent for two or three years and ultimately ashy gray or gray tinged with red, the spur-like lateral branchlets much roughened by the ring-like scars of fallen leaves. Bark about ⅛′ thick, divided by shallow fissures and broken on the surface into small light red-brown scales.

Distribution. In forests of Pines and Oaks usually at altitudes of about 5000°, on the dry ridges of the mountains of western Texas, and of southern New Mexico and Arizona; in Arizona ranging northward to Oak Creek Cañon, near Flagstaff, Coconino County (_P. Lowell_); and southward over the mountains of northern Mexico.

10. PRUNUS B. & H. Plum and Cherry.

Trees or shrubs, with bitter astringent properties, slender branchlets, marked by the usually small elevated horizontal leaf-scars with 2 or 3 fibro-vascular bundle-scars, and small scaly buds, their scales imbricated in many rows, those of the inner rows accrescent and often colored. Leaves convolute or conduplicate in the bud, alternate, simple, usually serrate, petiolate, deciduous or persistent; stipules free from the petiole, usually lanceolate and glandular, often minute, early deciduous. Flowers in axillary umbels or corymbs, or in terminal or axillary racemes, appearing from separate buds before, with, or later than the leaves, or on leafy branches; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; disk thin, adnate to the calyx-tube, glandular, often colored; petals 5, white, deciduous; stamens usually 15—20, inserted with the petals in 3 rows, those of the outer row 10, opposite the petals, those of the next row alternate with them and with those of the inner row, sometimes 30 in 3 rows; filaments filiform, free, incurved in the bud; anthers oval, attached on the back; ovary inserted in the bottom of the calyx-tube, 1-celled; style terminal, dilated at apex into a truncate stigma; ovules 2, suspended; raphe ventral; the micropyle superior. Fruit a 1-seeded drupe; flesh thick and pulpy or dry and coriaceous; stone bony, smooth, rugose, or pitted, compressed, indehiscent. Seed filling the cavity of the nut, suspended; seed-coat thin, membranaceous, pale brown; cotyledons thick and fleshy; radicle superior.

Prunus with about one hundred and twenty species is generally distributed over the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, and is abundant in North America, eastern Asia, western and central Asia and central Europe, ranging southward in the New World into tropical America, and to southern Asia in the Old World. Of the twenty-five or thirty species which occur in the United States, twenty-two are arborescent in habit. Several of the species bear fruits which are important articles of human food; many contain in the seeds and leaves hydrocyanic acid, to which is due their peculiar odor, and the fruit of some of the species is used to flavor cordials. The wood of Prunus is close-grained, solid, and durable, and a few of the species are important timber-trees.

_Prunus_ is the classical name of the Plum-tree.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES.

Flowers in sessile axillary umbels; fruit usually slightly 2-lobed by a ventral groove, generally more than ½′ in diameter, red to nearly black or yellow, often covered with a glaucous bloom. Prunophora. Plums. Leaves convolute in the bud, their petioles usually without glands. Leaves broad-ovate to orbicular; fruit often 1′ or more in diameter, red or yellow, nearly destitute of bloom. 1. P. subcordata (G). Leaves ovate-lanceolate to oblong or obovate; fruit ½′ in diameter or less, blue, nearly black, red or yellow, covered with a glaucous bloom. 2. P. umbellata (C). Leaves conduplicate in the bud. Leaves dull dark green, usually abruptly pointed at apex. Fruit red, rarely yellow, or blue in one form of 2 and 5; leaves oblong to obovate; stone of the fruit compressed. Leaves crennate-serrate, their petioles biglandular; calyx-lobes glandular. 3. P. nigra (A). Leaves sharply serrate with slender often apiculate teeth. Leaves narrowed and usually cuneate at base. Leaves glabrous or villose on the midrib below; petioles and calyx-lobes usually without glands. 4. P. americana (A, C, F). Leaves pubescent below; fruit covered with a thick glaucous bloom. Petioles eglandular or with a single gland near the apex; pedicel of the flower glabrous; calyx-tube puberulous; stone of the fruit rounded at base. 5. P. lanata (A, C). Petioles glandular near the apex with 1—3 prominent glands; pedicel of the flower furnished near the apex, like the glabrous calyx-tube, with long white hairs; stone of the fruit pointed at base. 6. P. tenuifolia (C). Leaves usually broad and rounded at base, ovate to elliptic or obovate, conspicuously reticulate-venulose; petioles glandular. 7. P. mexicana (C). Fruit purple, covered with a glaucous bloom; leaves lanceolate to oblong-ovate; petioles and calyx-lobes without glands; stone of the fruit turgid. 8. P. alleghaniensis (A). Leaves thin and lustrous, acute or acuminate, narrowed at base; petioles usually glandular; fruit red or yellow, the stone turgid. Calyx-lobes glandular. Leaves oblong-obovate to oblong-oval or rarely oblong-lanceolate. 9. P. hortulana (A). Leaves elliptic to lanceolate. 10. P. Munsoniana (A, C). Calyx-lobes without glands; leaves lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate. 11. P. angustifolia (A, C). Flowers in axillary umbels or corymbs; fruit bright red and lustrous, ½′ in diameter or less; leaves conduplicate in the bud. Mahaleb. Bird Cherries. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acuminate or rarely acute at apex. 12. P. pennsylvanica (A, B, F). Leaves oblong-obovate to oblanceolate, usually obtuse, occasionally acute at apex. 13. P. emarginata (B, F, G). Flowers in terminal racemes on leafy branches of the year; fruit globose, red or rarely yellow; leaves conduplicate in the bud. Padus. Wild Cherries. Calyx-lobes deciduous from the fruit; leaves oblong-oval or obovate, abruptly pointed, cuneate, rounded or in one form cordate at base. 14. P. virginiana (A, B, F, G). Calyx-lobes persistent on the fruit. Petioles biglandular near the apex. Leaves oblong to oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous, or rarely pubescent on the midrib below. 15. P. serotina (A, C). Leaves oval, broad-ovate or rarely obovate, acute, short-pointed or rounded at apex, villose-pubescent below. 16. P. alabamensis (C). Leaves obovate, oval or elliptic, short-pointed or rounded at apex, covered below with rufous hairs. 17. P. australis (C). Petioles without glands; leaves elliptic to ovate or slightly obovate, acute, rounded or abruptly short-pointed at apex, in one form rusty pubescent on the midrib below. 18. P. virens (E, F, H). Flowers in racemes from the axils of persistent leaves of the previous year; fruit globose or slightly three-lobed; leaves conduplicate in the bud. Laurocerasus. Cherry Laurels. Calyx-lobes rounded, undulate on the margins; leaves oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, entire or rarely remotely spinulose-serrate; fruit black, the stone broad-ovoid, acute, cylindric. 19. P. caroliniana (C). Calyx-lobes acute, minute. Leaves elliptic to oblong-ovate, entire; fruit orange-brown, the stone subglobose. 20. P. myrtifolia (D). Leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acute, rounded or emarginate at apex, conspicuously spinulose-dentate; fruit red, becoming purple or nearly black, the stone ovoid, short-pointed. 21. P. ilicifolia (G). Leaves ovate to lanceolate, acuminate or abruptly short-pointed at apex, usually entire; fruit dark purple or nearly black, the stone ovoid to obovoid, short-pointed. 22. P. Lyonii (G).

1. Prunus subcordata Benth. Wild Plum.

Leaves broad-ovate or orbicular, usually cordate, sometimes truncate or rarely cuneate at base, and sharply often doubly serrate, when they unfold puberulous on the upper surface and pubescent on the lower surface, and at maturity glabrous, or puberulous below, slightly coriaceous, dark green above and pale below, 1′—3′ long and ½′—2′ wide, with a broad midrib and conspicuous veins; northward turning brilliant scarlet and orange or red and yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, usually eglandular, ½′—¾′ in length; stipules lanceolate, acute, glandular-serrate. Flowers appearing before the leaves in March and April, ⅔′ in diameter, on slender glabrous or pubescent pedicels ¼′—½′ long, in 2—4-flowered umbels; calyx-tube campanulate, glabrous or puberulous, the lobes oblong-obovate, rounded at apex, pubescent on the outer surface, more or less clothed with pale hairs on the inner surface, half as long as the obovate white petals rounded above and narrowed below into a short claw. Fruit ripening in August and September, on stout pedicels ½′—⅔′ long; short-oblong, ½′—1¼′ long, with dark red or sometimes bright yellow skin, and more or less subacid flesh; stone flattened or turgid, acute at the ends, ⅓′—1′ long, narrowly wing-margined on the ventral suture, conspicuously grooved on the dorsal suture.

A tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, dividing 6°—8° from the ground into stout almost horizontal branches, and glabrous or pubescent bright red more or less spinescent branchlets marked by occasional minute pale lenticels, becoming darker red or purple in their second year, and ultimately dark brown or ashy gray; or often a bush, with stout ascending stems 10°—12° tall, or a low much-branched shrub. Winter-buds acute, ⅛′ long, with chestnut-brown scales, scarious on the margins, those of the inner rows ¼′ long at maturity, oblong, acute, and generally bright red. Bark about ¼′ thick, gray-brown, deeply fissured, and divided into long thick plates broken on the surface into minute persistent scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, pale brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Dry rocky hills and open woods usually in the neighborhood of streams, sometimes forming thickets of considerable extent; central Oregon to northeastern California in the region east of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains, and common to central California; on the foothills of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada up to altitudes of 4000° south to the Yosemite Valley, and on the coast ranges to Black Mountain, Santa Clara County; of its largest size on the borders of small streams in southern Oregon and northern California; at high altitudes, and in the arid regions of southeastern Oregon a low shrub producing sparingly small sometimes pubescent fruit (var. _oregona_ Wight); Klamath Indian Reservation, near Klamath Falls and in Sprague River Valley, Klamath County.

2. Prunus umbellata Ell. Sloe. Black Sloe.

Leaves obovate-lanceolate to oblong, acute at the ends or sometimes rounded or slightly cordate at base, finely and sharply serrate with remote incurved glandular teeth, and usually furnished with 2 large dark glands at the base, when they unfold bright bronze-green, with red margins, midrib, and petiole, glabrous above and pubescent or glabrous below with the exception of a few hairs along the prominent orange-colored midrib and primary veins, and at maturity thin, dark green above, paler below, 2′—2½′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, petioles stout, glabrous or pubescent, about ⅓′ in length; stipules lanceolate, setaceous, glandular-serrate, ¼′—⅔′ long. Flowers opening in March and April before the appearance of the leaves, ⅔′ in diameter, on slender glabrous pedicels ½′ long, in 3 or 4-flowered umbels; calyx-tube broad-obconic, glabrous or puberulous, the lobes sometimes slightly clavate at the acute red apex, scarious on the margins, and hoary-tomentose on the inner surface; petals nearly orbicular, contracted at the base into a short claw. Fruit ripening from July to September, on slender stems ½′ to nearly 1′ long, globose, without a basal depression, about ½′ in diameter, with a tough thick black or on some individuals yellow, and on others bright red skin covered with a glaucous bloom, and thick acid flesh; stone flattened with thin brittle walls, ½′ long, ¼′—5/16′ wide and half as thick, acute at the ends, slightly rugose, conspicuously ridged on the ventral suture, and slightly grooved on the dorsal suture.

A tree, sometimes 15°—20° high, with a short often crooked or inclining trunk 6′—10′ in diameter, slender unarmed branches forming a wide compact flat-topped head, and slender branchlets more or less densely coated at first with pale pubescence, soon becoming glabrous, lustrous and bright red, and in their second year dark dull brown and marked by occasional orange-colored oblong lenticels; or frequently a low shrub. Winter-buds about 1/16′ long, with acute chestnut-brown apiculate scales, those of the inner rows at maturity ¼′ long and red at the apex. Bark ¼′ thick, dark brown, separating into small appressed persistent scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, dark reddish brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood of about 30 layers of annual growth. The fruit is used in large quantities in making jellies and jams.