Distribution. Usually in rich soil; southern Illinois (Alexander, Gallatin, Pope, Johnson and Richland Counties); southwestern Kentucky; central Tennessee; northern Mississippi; central Missouri to southeastern Kansas, and through Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma, western Louisiana (Natchitoches and Lincoln Parishes), and northern Texas (west to Clay and Lampasas Counties); now occasionally naturalized from cultivated trees in eastern Texas, and eastward to Georgia, eastern Kentucky, southern Ohio, and in northern Missouri. Hardy in eastern Massachusetts and western New York.
Cultivated in orchards, a tree sometimes 20°—30° tall with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, and rather small wide-spreading branches forming a handsome round-topped head. Selected forms of the wild plants are valued by pomologists who have produced several hybrids by crossing Prunus Munsoniana with other American and with Old World species. The “Wild Goose Plum,” one of the best known forms of Prunus Munsoniana, has flowered and produced fruit for many years in the Arnold Arboretum.
11. [Prunus angustifolia] Marsh. Chickasaw Plum.
Leaves lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, pointed at the ends, apiculate at apex, and sharply serrate with minute glandular teeth, glabrous or at first sometimes furnished with axillary tufts of long pale hairs, bright green and lustrous on the upper, paler and rather dull on the lower surface, 1′—2′ long and ⅓′—⅔′ wide; petioles slender, glabrous or puberulous, biglandular near the apex with 2 conspicuous red glands, bright red, ¼′—½′ in length; stipules linear or lobed, glandular-serrate, ½′ long. Flowers appearing before the leaves from the beginning of March at the south to the middle of April at the north, ⅓′ in diameter, on slender glabrous pedicels ¼′—½′ long, in 2—4-flowered umbels; calyx-tube campanulate, glabrous, the lobes oblong, obtuse, entire ciliate on the margins with slender hairs, pale-pubescent on the inner surface, reflexed at maturity; petals obovate, rounded at apex, contracted at base into a short broad claw, white or creamy white. Fruit ripening between the end of May and the end of July, globose or subglobose, about ½′ in diameter, bright red or yellow, rather lustrous, nearly destitute of bloom, with a thin skin, and juicy subacid flesh; stone turgid, rugose, compressed at the ends, nearly ½′ long, more or less thick-margined on the ventral suture and grooved on the dorsal suture.
A tree, 15°—25° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 8′ in diameter, slender spreading branches, and bright red and lustrous branchlets glabrous or covered at first with short caducous hairs, becoming in their second year dull, darker and often brown, marked with occasional horizontal orange-colored lenticels, and frequently armed with long thin spinescent lateral branchlets; spreading into thickets. Winter-buds acuminate, 1/16′ long, with chestnut-brown scales. Bark about ⅛′ thick, dark reddish brown and slightly furrowed, the surface broken into long thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, although rather soft, not strong, light brownish red with lighter colored sapwood. The fruit is often sold in the markets of the middle and southern states.
Distribution. Widely naturalized especially in the south Atlantic and Gulf states from southern Delaware and Kentucky to central Florida and eastern Texas, occupying the margins of fields and other waste places near human habitations usually in rich soil; probably native in central Texas and Oklahoma. Passing into var. varians Wight & Hedrick, differing from the type in its usually larger leaves occasionally up to 2½′ in length and to 1′ in width, in the longer pedicels of the flowers and in the ovoid to ellipsoid often pointed stone of the red or yellow later ripening fruit. A tree usually spreading into thickets, occasionally 12° high with a trunk 4′ or 5′ in diameter, small branches and slender often spinescent chestnut-brown branchlets. Usually in richer soil than the type, southwestern Kansas (Arkansas City, Desha County), through eastern Oklahoma and southern Arkansas to northern and central Texas (Cherokee County); now occasionally naturalized in the eastern Gulf States and possibly indigenous in Dallas County, Alabama, and Orange County, Florida.
A number of selected forms of this variety, including most of those formerly referred to Prunus angustifolia, are grown and valued in southern orchards but are not hardy in the north.
12. [Prunus pennsylvanica] L. Wild Red Cherry. Bird Cherry.
