WILD CHERRY, two trees and one shrub, belonging to the rose family (order rosacca), sub-order amygdalve, genus prunus, indigenous to North America. 1. P. Penn sylranica, or wild red cherry, is a tree from 20 to 30 ft. high, common in rocky woodS particularly in the northern states, flowering in May. Leaves oblong-lanceolate rocky finely and sharply serrate, green and smooth on both sides; flowers in a on long pedieels; fruit round, light-red, very small, with thin pulp; stone globular. 2. P11171118 serotina, the wild black cherry, whose timber is so much prized for cabinet and other i work, a fine tree with gray, sometimes rather shaggy bark on the trunk, and reddish ! 425 Wilbur.
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? Arabs, often growing in the western states to 80 ft. in height and 2 ft. or more in diame ter, but smaller in the Atlantic states; leaves lanceolate-oblong, taper-pointed, serrate, with incurved, short, and callous teeth, thick, shining above; flowers, which appear in June, and fruit, in long racemes; fruit purplish-black, about the size of a common pea, but often larger on rich alluvial soils; when very ripe and large, they are agreeable to the taste. In some of the older sections of New York it was many years ago planted in
the fields and along the fences, where some of the trees are still growing, but few are now planted. P.Virginiana is the common choke-cherry, but the name has been erro neously applied in the dispensatories to the wild black cherry just described. It is a tall, rather slender shrub (sometimes it may be called a tree), from 8 to 15 ft. high, with grayish bark, leaves oval, oblong, or obovate, blunt-pointed, sharply serrate; racemes short and close; petals roundish; fruit red, turning to dark crimson, and very astringent until perfectly ripe, when it is not unpleasant, if large, and growing on good soil; flow trs in May; grows along fences and river banks, especially northward.