COE
Prunus avium
- 1. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 26. 1909.
- Coe's Transparent. 2. Horticulturist 2:71, 72 fig. 1847-48. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 211. 1856. 4. Mortillet Le Cerisier 2:87 fig., 88. 1866. 5. Cult. & Count. Gent. 36:326. 1871. 6. Thomas Guide Prat. 15, 206. 1876.
- Guigne Coé. 7. Leroy Dict. Pom. 5:319 fig., 320. 1877.
- Coe's Bunte Transparent. 8. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 343. 1889.
Even earlier and certainly better than Cleveland, which we have just discussed, is Coe, long known as Coe's Transparent. This is the first of the light-colored cherries to ripen and is a splendid fruit in quality and appearance. The color-plate shows this variety very well—possibly too well, since one of its defects is variability in color, the variant usually being very light colored and not as attractive as the type. A second defect is that the fruit runs rather small. The tree-characters are in the main very good. The variety can be distinguished, as a rule, by the large, spreading tree and to a lesser extent by its hardiness, vigor, healthfulness and fruitfulness. Coe is worthy of a place in every home plantation, in orchards for local markets and in favored localities as an early cherry for the general market.
Curtis Coe of Middletown, Connecticut, grew this variety early in the Nineteenth Century from a pit of what he supposed to be Ox Heart. The American Pomological Society included Coe in its list of recommended fruits in 1856.
COE
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, open, very productive; trunk stocky, shaggy; branches thick, smooth, dark reddish-brown overlaid with ash-gray, with many raised lenticels; branchlets stout, short, brown nearly covered with gray, smooth, glabrous, with numerous small, conspicuous, raised lenticels.
Leaves numerous, four and one-fourth inches long, two and one-fourth inches wide, folded upward or flattened, long-elliptical to obovate, thin; upper surface medium green; lower surface light green, thinly pubescent; apex acute, base abrupt; margin coarsely serrate, with small, black glands; petiole one and three-fourths inches long, thick, tinged with red, grooved, hairy, with from one to three large, reniform, greenish-yellow or reddish glands on the stalk.
Buds large, long, conical, plump, free, in clusters on spurs variable in length; leaf-scars very prominent; season of bloom intermediate; flowers one and one-fourth inches across, white; borne in dense clusters, thickly distributed over the tree in twos and threes; pedicels one inch long, slender, glabrous, green; calyx-tube green, broadly campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes tinged with red, broad, obtuse, glabrous within and without, reflexed; petals roundish, entire, with a shallow notch at the apex; filaments one-quarter inch long; pistil glabrous, equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit matures early; nearly one inch in diameter, roundish-cordate, slightly compressed; cavity regular, abrupt; suture indistinct; apex blunt-pointed or slightly depressed; color pale amber faintly mottled with red; dots small, light yellow, inconspicuous; stem slender, one and one-half inches long, adherent to the fruit; skin thin, of medium toughness, separating from the pulp; flesh pale yellow, with colorless juice, tender, meaty, mild, sweet; good to very good in quality; stone semi-free or free, one-half inch long, less than one-half inch wide, roundish, somewhat flattened, blunt, with smooth surfaces; ridged along the ventral suture.
DIKEMAN
Prunus avium