PRUNUS CUNEATA Rafinesque.

Prunus cuneata, sometimes called the Appalachian cherry, is not growing at this Station but is described in the references given as very similar to the Sand Cherry, differing in the following respects:

The plant is dwarfer but is more erect never having prostrate branches; the branches are smoother and lighter colored; the leaves are shorter, more oval, more obtuse, thinner, less conspicuously veined, teeth fewer and the points more appressed; the flowers are larger, petals broader and are borne on slightly curled stems in umbels of two to four; the fruit and stone in the two species are much the same, possibly averaging smaller in this species.

The habitat of Prunus cuneata is from Maine to North Carolina and northwest to Minnesota, being most commonly found in wet, stiff soils near lakes and bogs but often found on rocky hills if the soil be not too dry.

It is doubtful if this cherry is as promising for cultivation as the foregoing species and not nearly as worthy attention as the next cherry.

PRUNUS BESSEYI Bailey.

Plant a small shrub, spreading or diffuse, one to four feet in height, open-centered, slow-growing, hardy; trunk slender, smooth; branches slender, smooth, very dark brownish-black, with numerous lenticels; branchlets slender, short, with short internodes, dull grayish-brown becoming almost black, smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, small, raised lenticels.

Leaves hanging late, numerous, small, two and three-eighths inches long, one inch wide, thick, stiff, slightly folded upward or nearly flat; apex with a short taper-point, broadly lanceolate to nearly oval-lanceolate; upper surface dark green, glossy, smooth; lower surface very light green, not pubescent; midrib distinct, glabrous; veins small but distinct; margin serrate, teeth appressed, tipped with indistinct, sharp glands; petiole thick, three-eighths inch in length, glandless or with from one to two very small, light colored, globose glands on the petiole at the base of the leaf; stipules very prominent, almost leaf-like.

Flowers appearing with the leaves in sessile umbels, small, less than a half-inch across, white; fruit more than a half-inch in diameter, globose, sometimes oblong-pointed, yellowish, mottled or more often purple-black; variable in quality but always more or less astringent; ripening in early August; stone large, globose, slightly flattened.

The habitat of Prunus besseyi is not yet definitely bounded but it can, at least, be said that this species is to be found on the prairies from Manitoba and Minnesota to southern Kansas and westward into Montana, Wyoming and Utah. In its natural range it undoubtedly runs into that of Prunus pumila to the east, and Waugh, in the reference given, holds that the two species grade into each other and he, therefore, makes this a variety of the eastern species. Certainly Prunus pumila and Prunus besseyi are as distinct as are many other of the more or less indefinite species of this genus—few, indeed, are the species of Prunus that do not have outliers which overlap other types and, as we shall see, there are hybrids between this and species of other cherries, plums and even peaches and apricots, showing that the lines of demarcation between the members of this genus are difficult to define.