WILD CHERRY (Prunus), Several North _American trees and shrubs belonging to the natural order Rosacete. P Pennsylraniea, or wild red cherry, is a tree from 20 to 30 feet high, common in rocky woods, particularly in the Northern States, with leaves oblong-laneeolated, pointed, finely and sharply serrate, green, and smooth on both sides; dowers in a cluster on long pedieels in May; fruit round, light-red, very small, with thin pulp; stone globular. Prunus scrotina, the wild black cherry, is a fine tree with gray, sometimes rather shaggy bark on the trunk, and reddish limbs, often growing in the Western States to SO feet in height and 2 feet or more in diameter, but smaller in the Atlantic States, leaves lanceolate-oblong, taper pointed, serrate, with ineurved, short, and cal lous teeth, thick, shining above; flowers, which appear in June, 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 it is agreeable to the taste. In sonic of the older sections of New York the tree was formerly planted in the fields and along the fences. Its
dark-colored timber is highly valued as a cabinet wood. Prunus the common cherry, is a tall, rather slender shrub (sometimes it may be called a tree), from 8 to 15 feet high, with grayish bark, leaves oval, oblong, or obo vate, blunt-pointed, sharply serrate; racemes short and close; petals roundish; fruit red, turn ing to dark crimson, and very astringent until perfectly ripe, when it is not unpleasant, if large, and growing on good soil; flowers in May; grows along fences and river banks, especially north ward. The popular name is sometimes wrongly applied to the preceding species. The name wild cherry is often given to other species than the above, as to the bitter cherry (Prunus enzargi. auto) and the holly-leaf cherry (Prunus ilicifo lia), varieties of the cultivated cherries that have escaped from cultivation in many places in the Eastern United States.