HOLLY-LEAVED CHERRY. ISLAY.
Prunus ilicifolia, Walp. Rose Family.
Evergreen shrubs or small trees; eight to thirty feet high. Leaves.—Alternate; holly-like; an inch or two long. Flowers.—White; three lines across; in racemes eighteen lines to three inches long. Calyx.—Five-cleft. Petals.—Five; spreading. Stamens.—Twelve to twenty-five. Ovary.—Solitary; one-celled. Style terminal. Fruit.—A dark red cherry, becoming black; six lines in diameter. Hab.—Coast Ranges, San Francisco into Lower California.
The holly-leaved cherry is a very ornamental shrub, with its shining, prickly evergreen leaves, and it is coming more and more into favor for cultivation, especially as a hedge-shrub. In its natural state it attains its greatest perfection in the mountains near Santa Barbara and southward. On dry hills it is only a shrub, but in the rich soil of cañon bottoms it becomes a tree. Some of the finest specimens are to be found in the gardens of the old missions, where they have been growing probably a century.
Dr. Behr tells us that the foliage, in withering, develops hydrocyanic acid, the odor of which is quite perceptible. The leaves are then poisonous to sheep and cattle.
The shrubs are especially beautiful in spring, after they have made their new growth of bright green at the ends of the branches, and put forth a profusion of feathery bloom. The blossoms have the pleasant, bitter fragrance of the cultivated cherry, and attract myriads of bees, who make the region vocal with their busy hum. The fruit, which ripens from September to December, is disappointing, owing to its very thin pulp, though its astringent and acid flavor is not unpleasant.
It was used by the aborigines as food, however, and made into an intoxicating drink by fermentation. The meat of the stones ground and made into balls constituted a delicate morsel with them.