The cherries of New York
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Title: The cherries of New York
Author: U. P. Hedrick
Contributor: G. H. Howe
O. M. Taylor
C. B. Tubergen
R. Wellington
Release date: July 19, 2014 [eBook #46327]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK ***
[Transcriber's Note:
Bold text denoted by equal signs.
Italics denoted with underscores.]
[Illustration: CHARLES DOWNING]
STATE OF NEW YORK--DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Twenty-second Annual Report--Vol. 2--Part II
THE
CHERRIES OF NEW YORK
BY
U. P. HEDRICK
ASSISTED BY
G. H. HOWE
O. M. TAYLOR
C. B. TUBERGEN
R. WELLINGTON
Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1914
II
ALBANY
J. B. LYON COMPANY, STATE PRINTERS
1915
NEW YORK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION,
GENEVA, N. Y., _January 12, 1915_
_To the Honorable Board of Control of the New York Agricultural Experiment
Station_:
GENTLEMEN:--I have the honor to transmit herewith the manuscript copy
for Part II of the 33d Annual Report of this Station. This contribution
is the fourth monograph on the fruits of New York State, prepared under
your direction by the Horticulturist of this institution and his
associates.
The cherry, which this manuscript discusses, is undoubtedly most widely
grown of the tree-fruits of the State; for within easy reach of every
rural housewife--in orchard or garden, along roadside or lane--the "pie
cherry" will be found; and many a lawn, even in village or city, is
graced by the stately trees which bear the delicious Yellow Spanish or
Black Tartarian. In many parts of the State, also, cherry growing is an
industry of much commercial importance, with orchards exceeded in value
by those of the apple and peach alone.
Because of its widespread popularity and commercial importance the
cherry well merits treatment in this place in the series of monographs.
It is hoped and believed that the growers and lovers of the fruit will
appreciate and utilize to good advantage the result here presented of
years of painstaking work by the authors. The discussions are based not
alone on Station experience with hundreds of the thousand or more
varieties described, but as well upon the collected observations of many
cherry growers and the expressed judgments of the leading pomologists
who have been interested in this fruit.
W. H. JORDAN,
_Director_
PREFACE
This is the fourth of the monographs on the fruits of temperate North
America published by the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. The
nature and purposes of these treatises have been set forth in the
prefaces of preceding volumes, but a summary of the purposes, with
needed emphasis on several, is given for the convenience of all readers
and the enlightenment of those who may not have the first three books.
_The Cherries of New York_ contains an historical account of cultivated
cherries, the botany of this fruit, a statement of its present economic
status in America, descriptions of all known varieties of cherries, the
synonymy and bibliography of the species and varieties, and biographical
sketches of the persons who have contributed materially to cherry
culture in America. The most important varieties are illustrated in
colors. Everything that was thought would be helpful in breeding
cherries has been included, and special search has been made for such
material. So, too, whatever was thought to be of interest to students of
ecology and of plant distribution has been added.
In the monographs on grapes and plums it was necessary to devote much
space to the botanical relationship of these fruits since each contains
more than a score of species under cultivation, some of which are
scarcely known and most of which are extremely variable. The botany of
cultivated cherries is comparatively simple and has been made plain by
botanical writers. Yet the contemplation of the several species from a
horticultural standpoint adds something, we believe, to the botany of
cherries, especially as concerns the forms of the Sweet Cherry and the
Sour Cherry which have been variously treated by botanists.
As compared with their congeners, especially the plums, the economic
species of cherries are remarkably well delimited, showing far less
responsiveness to environment and having seemingly less inherent
variation, so that there need be little confusion in botanical
classification. On the other hand varieties are so similar that it is
only with the greatest difficulty that closely related sorts are
distinguished and there is great confusion in the synonymy, the chief
task of the present work being to distinguish the true names from the
synonyms of the varieties described.
In _The Cherries of New York_, as in the preceding fruit books from
this Station, effort has been made to give as accurately as possible
the region in which the species and varieties grow best and to set forth
fully the local prejudices of the fruits. Such knowledge cannot but be
of value in determining the factors which govern the distribution of
plants. The establishment of community relationships and description of
plant communities now constitute an important part of botany on the one
side and of geography on the other. No phenomena give better expression
of the climate and the soil of a region than plant communities. When
monographs of several of the fruits of temperate North America shall
have been completed, with statements of likes and dislikes of the fruits
and their varieties as to climate and soil, material should be available
to establish plant communities from which can be drawn valuable
generalizations.
All, howsoever interested in pomology, are dependent upon descriptions
of fruits. A well-made description of a fruit, to one mentally equipped
to interpret it, is second only, in the study of pomology, to having the
fruit itself. With but few exceptions the descriptions of the major
varieties are made first hand from cherries growing on the Station
grounds, though in many cases fruits from different localities have been
compared with those home-grown.
Since there are fewer varieties of cherries than of plums, it has been
possible to describe and illustrate a greater proportion of the sorts
under cultivation than in the book on plums, yet a selection has had to
be made of the worthiest of the many kinds. The choice of sorts for full
descriptions and color-plates has been determined: (1) By the present
value of the variety; (2) the probable value if the variety be a
novelty; (3) by the value of the data to the cherry breeder; (4) because
of historical value--to show what the trend of cherry evolution has
been; (5) to show the relationships of species and varieties. The
varieties not illustrated nor fully described are divided into two
further groups in accordance with the same considerations.
In botanical nomenclature the code adopted by the International
Botanical Congress, held at Vienna in 1905, has been used. In the use of
horticultural names we have followed somewhat closely the rules of the
American Pomological Society, though in many cases strict observance of
these rules, poor at best, would have added to rather than lessened the
confusion in horticultural nomenclature and, therefore, they have been
honored in the breach rather than in the observance.
The references given are those that have been of use in ascertaining the
history, the economic status, or the description of the variety that
follows--no more, no fewer. These constitute a very small proportion of
the references that have been read--a tremendous task involving two or
three years' work for several persons.
So, too, it has been a herculean task to search out the synonyms of
cherries. French, German, English and American books on pomology
overflow with such synonyms and all in a state of "confusion worse
confounded." An enormous amount of work has been done in trying to bring
order out of this confusion. Many of the synonyms of varieties have been
given in times past because of adaptations to local environment. Such
naming of ecologic forms is not an unmixed evil, since it draws
attention to variable varieties and characters which otherwise might be
overlooked.
Under the ferment of Mendelian and De Vriesian ideas we seem to be at
the beginning of an era of great improvement of plants. There have never
been well-directed efforts to improve fruits, yet something has been
done with all. Now, when there is an onrush of new discoveries in
plant-breeding, seems to be a particularly opportune time to tell all
that can be learned about how cherries have been brought from their wild
state to their present perfection. This we try to do in giving the
origin and history of varieties, especially as to parentage and manner
of origin, though such information is scant and very fragmentary.
As in the previous fruit books some prominence is given in foot-notes to
biography. A knowledge of the career of those who have been giants in
their day in the development of any industry is most helpful to the best
understanding, indeed, is almost indispensable to the fullest
comprehension, of the industry. The short foot-notes, it is hoped, will
serve to give some conception of what the master builders in pomology
were like in training, character, and methods of work. From the
reception which these sketches in former fruit books have received, the
writers feel that the considerable expenditure of time and thought that
these biographical notices have required is amply justified and that the
effort to give credit due and some small honor to the promoters of
pomology has been well worth while.
For aid in the preparation of _The Cherries of New York_ I am especially
indebted to those whose names appear on the title page, to my associate,
Mr. R. D. Anthony, for reading proof; to the Station editor, Mr. F. H.
Hall, who has had charge of the proof reading; to Zeese-Wilkinson
Company, New York City, who have had an especially difficult task in
making the color-plates and who have done the work well; and to the J.
B. Lyon Company, Albany, New York, for their painstaking work in
printing the book.
U. P. HEDRICK,
_Horticulturist, New York Agricultural Experiment Station._
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS xi
CHAPTER I.--CULTIVATED CHERRIES 1
CHAPTER II.--THE HISTORY OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES 39
CHAPTER III.--CHERRY CULTURE 65
CHAPTER IV.--LEADING VARIETIES OF CHERRIES 97
CHAPTER V.--MINOR VARIETIES OF CHERRIES 205
BIBLIOGRAPHY, REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS 337
INDEX 347
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES DOWNING _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
ABBESSE D'OIGNIES 98
ARCH DUKE 100
BING 104
BLACK TARTARIAN 108
BOURGUEIL 110
BRUSSELER BRAUNE 112
CARNATION 114
COE 120
DOUBLE NATTE 124
DOWNER 126
DYEHOUSE 126
EAGLE 128
EARLY PURPLE 130
EARLY RICHMOND 132
ELTON 136
EMPRESS EUGENIE 138
ENGLISH MORELLO 140
FLORENCE 140
GEORGE GLASS 142
IDA 144
KIRTLAND 148
KNIGHT 150
LAMBERT 152
LARGE MONTMORENCY 154
LATE DUKE 156
Louis PHILIPPE 158
MAY DUKE 164
MEZEL 168
MONTMORENCY 170
NAPOLEON 172
NOUVELLE ROYALE 174
OLIVET 176
OSTHEIM 178
_PRUNUS AVIUM_ (DOUBLE FLOWERING),
BLOSSOMS OF 30
_PRUNUS AVIUM_ (MAZZARD) 72
_PRUNUS AVIUM_ (MAZZARD), BLOSSOMS OF 68
_PRUNUS AVIUM_ (YELLOW SPANISH), BLOSSOMS OF 28
_PRUNUS AVIUM_ × _PRUNUS CERASUS_
(REINE HORTENSE), BLOSSOMS OF 32
_PRUNUS CERASUS_ (AMARELLE GROUP), BLOSSOMS OF 24
_PRUNUS CERASUS_ (MORELLO GROUP), BLOSSOMS OF 26
_PRUNUS MAHALEB_ 74
_PRUNUS MAHALEB_, BLOSSOMS OF 70
_PRUNUS TOMENTOSA_ 34
REINE HORTENSE 180
REPUBLICAN 182
ROCKPORT 182
ROYAL DUKE 184
SCHMIDT 186
SHORT-STEM MONTMORENCY 188
SKLANKA 188
SUDA 192
TIMME 192
VLADIMIR 194
WINDSOR 198
WOOD 200
YELLOW SPANISH 202
THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK
CHAPTER I
CULTIVATED CHERRIES
CHERRIES AND THEIR KINDRED
The genus Prunus plays a very important part in horticulture. It
furnishes, in temperate climates, the stone-fruits, plants of ancient
and modern agriculture of which there are a score or more commonly
cultivated and at least as many more sparingly grown for their edible
fruits. Of these stone-fruits the species of cherries rank with those of
the plum and the peach in commercial importance while the several
botanical groups of the apricot and almond are less important, but
hardly less well-known, members of this notable genus. Prunus is of
interest, too, because the history of its edible species follows step by
step the history of agriculture. The domestication of its fruits from
wild progenitors, most of which are still subjects of common
observation, illustrates well the influences and conditions under which
plants have generally been brought into domestication. The genus is also
of more than ordinary note because the number of its economic species is
being increased almost yearly by new-found treasures from North America
and Asia, not varieties but species, which promise under future
domestication still further to enrich horticulture.
The plum and the peach surpass the cherry in diversity of flavor, aroma,
texture, color, form and size, characters which make fruits pleasant to
the palate and beautiful to the eye; but the cherry, perhaps, plays a
more important part than the plum or the peach in domestic economy. It
has fewer prejudices as to soil and climate, hence is much more widely
distributed and is more easily grown, being better represented in the
orchards and gardens in the regions where the three fruits grow. The
cherry, too, fruits more quickly after planting, ripens earlier in the
season and its varieties are more regular in bearing and usually more
fruitful--characters that greatly commend it to fruit-growing people.
Probably it is the most popular of all fruits for the garden, dooryard,
roadside and small orchard. All in all, while adorning a somewhat
humbler place in pomology, it is more generally useful than the showier
and more delicate plum and peach.
Though placed by most botanists in the same genus, each of the
stone-fruits constitutes a natural group so distinct that neither
botanist nor fruit-grower could possibly take one for another as the
trees and fruits of the different groups are called to mind. But there
are outstanding forms which seem to establish connections between the
many species and the several groups of fruits and through these
outliers the characters are so confounded in attempting to separate
species that it becomes quickly apparent that there are few distinct
lines of cleavage within the genus. For several centuries systematists
have disputed as to whether the stone-fruits fall most naturally into
one, two, or three genera--indeed have not been able to agree as to
whether some species are plums or cherries, or others apricots or
plums. Hybridization between the cultivated divisions of the
genus--unquestionably it has taken place in nature as well--has added
to the perplexities of classification. Accepting, then, for the
present at least, the very artificial classification which, rather
paradoxically, places in one genus a number of fruits commonly thought
of as quite distinct, let us briefly note the characters which best
distinguish cherries from their congeners.
The cherry is nearest of kin to the plum. These two are roughly
separated from the other cultivated members of the genus to which they
belong by bearing their fruits on stems in fascicles while the others
are practically stemless and are solitary or borne in pairs. The fruits
of plums and cherries are globular or oblong, succulent and smooth or
nearly so. Peaches, apricots, nectarines and almonds are more sulcate
than plums and cherries and the almond has a drier flesh, splitting at
maturity to liberate the stone; and, with the exception of nectarines
and a few varieties of apricots, all are very pubescent. The stones of
cherries and plums are smooth, or nearly so, while those of the other
fruits are sculptured and pitted, though those of the apricot are often
somewhat plum-like.
Cherries are separated from plums by their smaller size and distinctive
color of skin, juice and flesh; by the texture and distinct flavor of
the flesh; by growth in corymbose rather than umbelliferous fascicles;
by the more globular stone; and by the arrangement of the leaves in the
bud. Leaves of the plum are usually convolute, or rolled up, in the bud,
while those of the cherry are conduplicate, or folded lengthwise along
the midrib.
We have been discussing the cherries of common cultivation--the Sweet
Cherry and Sour Cherry of the orchards, the fascicled cherries to which
the botanists give the group name, Cerasus. But there is another group,
the Padus cherries, well worthy of brief mention. The most noteworthy
representatives of Padus are the bird cherry (_Prunus padus_) of the Old
World and the choke cherry (_Prunus virginiana_) of the New World. These
Padus cherries are distinguished botanically in having their flowers
borne in racemes, that is, in long clusters of which those nearest the
base of the shoot open first--rather than in the short-clustered
fascicles of the Cerasus group. The cherries are small and almost or
quite black. The Padus cherries are but sparingly cultivated but
undoubtedly they are capable of some improvement under more thorough
cultivation.
DISTRIBUTION OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES
The cherry is one of the most commonly cultivated of all fruits and the
many varieties of its several forms encircle the globe in the North
Temperate Zone and are being rapidly disseminated throughout the
temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere. For centuries it has been,
as we shall see in the history of the species, one of the most valuable
fruit-producing trees of Europe and Asia--an inhabitant of nearly every
orchard and garden as well as a common roadside tree in temperate
climates in both continents. From Europe, as a center of distribution,
the cherry has played an important part in the orcharding in temperate
regions of other continents. In North America varieties of the cherry
are grown from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island on the north, to the
Gulf of California, Texas and Florida on the south, yielding fruit in a
greater diversity of soils and climates in Canada and the States of the
Union than any other tree-fruit.
The Sour Cherry is very cosmopolitan, thriving in many soils; is able to
withstand heat, cold and great atmospheric dryness, if the soil contain
moisture; and, though it responds to good care, it grows under neglect
better than any other tree-fruit. The Sour Cherry, too, is rather less
inviting to insects and fungi than most other stone-fruits, being
practically immune to the dreaded San José scale. On the other hand the
Sweet Cherry is very fastidious as to soils, is lacking in hardiness to
both heat and cold and is prey to many insects and subject to all the
ills to which stone-fruits are heir; it is grown at its best in but few
and comparatively limited areas, though these are very widely
distributed.
USES OF THE CHERRY
The cherry is a delectable early-summer fruit, especially grateful
as a refreshing dessert and much valued in cookery, when fresh,
canned, preserved or dried, for the making of pies, tarts, sauces
and confections. During the last few years, in America at least, the
consumption of cherries has been enormously increased by the fashion
of adding preserved cherries, as much for ornament as to give flavor,
to many drinks and ices. The great bulk of the cherry crop now grown
in America for commercial purposes is canned, the industry being more
or less specialized in a few fruit regions. The demand for cherries
for canning seems to be increasing greatly but unfortunately it calls
for but few varieties, the Montmorency being the sort sought for among
the Sour Cherries, while the hard-fleshed varieties of the Bigarreau
type are in greatest demand among the Sweet Cherries.
The cherry, while a very common fruit in nearly all agricultural
regions of America, does not hold the place in American markets as
a fresh fruit that it does in the towns and cities of Europe. The
great abundance of strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries,
dewberries, blackberries, as well as early varieties of tree fruits,
makes keener here than abroad the competition in the fruit markets
during cherry time. The fact, too, that market fruits in America
are shipped long distances, for which the cherry is not well
adapted, helps to explain the relatively small regard in which this
fruit has been held for commercial purposes in the fresh state. In
recent years, however, both Sweet Cherries and Sour Cherries, the
former in particular, have been sent to the markets in far greater
abundance, the impetus to their market value being due to a better
product--better varieties, hence greater demand--and to greatly
improved facilities for shipping and holding for sale.
In Europe several liqueurs are very commonly made from cherries both
for home and commercial uses. Such is not the case in America, where,
except in very limited quantities in which unfermented cherry juices
are used in the home, this fruit is not used in liqueur-making. In
some of the countries of Europe, wine is made from the juice; a
spirit, kirschwasser,[1] is distilled from the fermented pulp as an
article for both home and commerce; and ratafias and cordials are
very generally flavored with cherries. In the Austrian province of
Dalmatia a liqueur or cordial called maraschino[2] is made by a secret
process of fermentation and distillation. This liqueur is imported in
America in considerable quantities to flavor preservatives in which
the home-grown cherries are prepared for use in various drinks and
confections. No attempts have been made to grow the Marasca cherry
on a commercial scale in America but undoubtedly it could be grown
and, with the process of making maraschino discovered, an important
use would be developed for cherries--all the more to be desired since
the foreign maraschino is now grossly adulterated and imitated in
this country. Both the fruits and seeds of cherries, especially of
the Mahaleb, are steeped in spirits for food, drink and medicinal
purposes. An oil used in making perfumes for scenting soaps and
confectionery is also extracted from the seeds of the Mahaleb because
of which use this species is often called the "Perfumed Cherry."
In the old herbals and pomologies much is made of the value of
cherries for medicinal purposes. The fruit was supposed to be a
sovereign remedy for various ailments of the digestive tract as
well as for nervous disorders and epilepsy. The astringent leaves
and bark, or extracts from them, were much used by the ancients in
medicine and are still more or less employed both as home remedies
and in the practice of medicine as mild tonics and sedatives. One of
the active chemicals of the leaf, seed and bark is hydrocyanic acid
to which is largely due the peculiar odor of these structures. A gum
is secreted from the trunks of cherry trees, known in commerce as
cerasin, which has some use in medicine and in various trades as well,
especially as a substitute and as an adulterant of gum arabic.
At least three cultivated cherry trees produce wood of considerable
value. The wood of the cherry is hard, close-grained, solid, durable,
a handsome pale red, or brown tinged with red. _Prunus avium_, the
Sweet Cherry, furnishes a wood which, if sufficient care be taken to
season it, is of much value in cabinet-making and for the manufacture
of musical instruments. _Prunus mahaleb_ is a much smaller tree than
the former but its wood, as much as there is of it, is even more
valuable, being very hard and fragrant and dark enough in color to
take on a beautiful mahogany-like polish. In France the wood of
the Mahaleb cherry is held in high esteem, under the name _Bois
de St. Lucie_, in cabinet-making and for toys, canes, handles and
especially for the making of tobacco pipes. In Japan the wood of
_Prunus pseudocerasus_ is said to be in great demand for engraving
and in making the blocks used in printing cloth and wall-paper. In
America the wood of the orchard species of cherries is seldom used for
domestic purposes, that of the wild species being so much more cheaply
obtainable and serving all purposes quite as well.
To people who know it only for its fruit, the cherry does not appear
particularly desirable as an ornamental. But wild and cultivated
cherries furnish many beautiful trees in a genus peculiar for the
beauty of its species. The color and abundance of the flowers, fruits
and leaves of the cultivated cherries and the fact that they are
prolific of forms with double flowers, weeping, fastigiate or other
ornamental habits, make the several species of this plant valuable as
ornamentals. Besides, they are vigorous and rapid in growth, hardy,
easy of culture, comparatively free from pests and adapted to a great
diversity of soils and climates. Both the ornamental and the edible
cherries are very beautiful in spring when abundantly covered with
flowers, which usually open with the unfolding leaves, as well as
throughout the summer when overspread with lustrous green foliage and
most of them are quite as conspicuously beautiful in the autumn when
the leaves turn from green to light and dark tints of red. All will
agree that a cherry tree in full fruit is a most beautiful object. In
the winter when the leaves have fallen, some of the trees, especially
of the ornamental varieties, are very graceful and beautiful, others
are often picturesque, and even the somewhat stiff and formal Sweet
Cherries are attractive plants in the garden or along the roadside.
Very acceptable jellies, sauces and preserves are made from several
of the wild cherries in the Padus group. The peasantry of the Eastern
Hemisphere have in times of need found them important foods as have
also the American Indians at all times. The fruits of some of the
species of Padus are quite commonly used in flavoring liqueurs and on
both continents are sometimes fermented and distilled into a liqueur
similar to kirschwasser. The bark of different parts of the trees of
this group is valuable in medicine--at least is largely used. The
trees of several species form handsome ornamentals and some of them
are in commerce for the purpose. _Prunus serotina_, one of the group,
because of the strength of its wood and the beautiful satiny polish
which its surface is capable of receiving, is a valuable timber tree
of American forests. For the products of the members of this group,
as just set forth, the domestication of some of the species of Padus
might well be pushed.
[1] Kirschwasser as a commercial article is made chiefly on the
upper Rhine from the wild black Sweet Cherry (_Prunus avium_). In
its manufacture, fruit--flesh and kernels--is mashed into a pulp
which is allowed to ferment. By distillation from this fermented
pulp a colorless liqueur is obtained.
[2] Maraschino is a liqueur, or cordial, made from the fruit and
leaves of the small, sour, black Marasca cherry. The product
comes chiefly from Zara, the capital of the Austrian province
of Dalmatia, where it has been made and exported for over 200
years. Such accounts of the process of making maraschino as have
become public seem to agree that the liqueur is a distillation
of a compote made from the fruit and young leaves. When ripe
the cherries are picked early in the morning and sent at once
to the distillery where the stones are extracted by machinery.
The leaves are cut, pressed and added to the fruit with sugar
and alcohol. This mixture is allowed to ferment for six months
or thereabouts and from it is then distilled maraschino. It is
then stored in cellars for three years before being placed on the
markets. In both Europe and America there are many imitations of
the maraschino liqueur in which neither fruit nor foliage of the
Marasca nor any other cherry has any part.
According to the Dalmatians all attempts to improve the Marasca
cherry by culture have failed. They say, too, that it will not
thrive elsewhere than in Dalmatia. Under culture, the fruits and
leaves lose their distinctive aroma and taste as they do on any
but the native soil of the variety. The poorer, sparser and more
rocky the ferruginous soil, the wilder the tree, the smaller and
sourer the cherries, the better the maraschino liqueur--so the
present makers say.
Since considerable quantities of cherries are put up in America
in maraschino, or its imitation, and the manufacture of such
products is a growing industry, the following ruling by the Board
of Food and Drug Inspection of the United States Department of
Agriculture, taken from Food Inspection Decision 141, is of
interest to growers, canners and users of cherries:
"In considering the products prepared from the large light-colored
cherry of the Napoleon Bigarreau, or Royal Anne type, which
are artificially colored and flavored and put up in a sugar
sirup, flavored with various materials, the Board has reached
the conclusion that this product is not properly entitled to be
called 'Maraschino Cherries,' or 'Cherries in Maraschino.' If,
however, these cherries are packed in a sirup, flavored with
maraschino alone, it is the opinion of the Board that they would
not be misbranded, if labeled 'Cherries, Maraschino Flavor,' or
'Maraschino Flavored Cherries.' If these cherries are packed in
maraschino liqueur there would be no objection to the phrase
'Cherries in Maraschino.' When these artificially colored cherries
are put up in a sirup flavored in imitation of maraschino, even
though the flavoring may consist in part of maraschino, it would
not be proper to use the word 'Maraschino' in connection with
the product unless preceded by the word 'Imitation.' They may,
however, be labeled to show that they are a preserved cherry,
artificially colored and flavored.
"The presence of artificial coloring or flavoring matter, of any
substitute for cane sugar, and the presence and amount of benzoate
of soda, when used in these products must be plainly stated upon
the label in the manner provided in Food Inspection Decisions Nos.
52 and 104."
LITERATURE OF THE CHERRY
Despite the important part they have played in orcharding since the
domestication of fruits in temperate zones, as shown by their history
and their present popularity, pomological writers have singularly
neglected cherries. There are relatively few European books devoted
to them and in America, while there are treatises on all others of
the common tree-fruits, the cherry alone seems not to have inspired
some pomologist to print a book. Neither are the discussions in
general pomologies as full and accurate as for other fruits. The
reason for this neglect is that the cherry, until the last decade
or two, has scarcely been a fruit of commerce, having been grown
almost entirely for home use or at most for the local market. As a
result of this neglect of the cherry by students of pomology, we have
no authoritative nor serviceable system of classification of the
varieties of cherries and the nomenclature of this fruit is in an
appalling state of confusion, as a glance at the synonymy of some of
the older varieties discussed in _The Cherries of New York_ will show.
AMELIORATION OF THE CHERRY
The amelioration of the cherry has been in progress almost since
the dawn of civilization, yet few men have directed their efforts
toward the improvement of this fruit. The histories of the varieties
described in _The Cherries of New York_ show that nearly all of them
have come from chance seedlings. Possibly there has been little
interest in improving cherries because this fruit is comparatively
immutable in its characters.
In spite of the fact that there are a great number of varieties,
1,145 being described in _The Cherries of New York_, this of all
stone-fruits is most fixed in its characters. The differences between
tree and fruit in the many varieties are less marked than in the
other fruits of Prunus and the varieties come more nearly true to
seed. Though probably domesticated as long ago as any other of the
tree-fruits, the cherry is now most of all like its wild progenitors.
The plum is very closely related to the cherry but it has varied
in nature and under cultivation much more than the cherry and in
accordance with different environments has developed more marked
differences in its species to endure the conditions brought about by
the topographical and climatic changes through which the earth has
passed. Under domestication more than twice as many orchard varieties
of the plum have come into being as of the cherry. In spite of this
stability, there are ample rewards in breeding cherries to those
who will put in practice rightly directed efforts to improve this
fruit--a statement substantiated by the histories of some of the
best varieties, described later in this text, which were originated
through what was passing as current coin in plant-breeding before the
far better methods of the present time, brought about by Mendel's
discovery, came into being.
The cherry, as the histories of its many diverse kinds show, has been
improved only through new varieties. There is no evidence, whatever,
to show that any one of the several hundred cherries described in this
text has been improved by selection as a cumulative process, or, on
the other hand, that any one of them has cumulatively degenerated.
Of varieties cultivated for their fruits there are no records of
mutations either from the seed or from bud, though of the ornamental
cherries not a few have arisen as bud-mutations, as, for example, the
several double-flowered cherries and those of weeping or fastigiate
habit of growth and the many sorts with abnormally colored foliage.
Since improvement depends upon the bringing into being of new cherries
it becomes highly important to know how the varieties we are dealing
with in _The Cherries of New York_ have come into existence. The
following is a summary of their manner of origin:--
No case is recorded in _The Cherries of New York_ of a variety known
to have come from self-fertilized seed.
The seed parent is given for 61 varieties. The statements as to seed
parents are probably accurate, for a man planting cherry seeds would
record the name of the seed parent correctly if he knew it.
The seed and pollen parents of twenty of the cherries described in
this work are given. Sixteen of these are hybrids originating with
Professor N. E. Hansen of South Dakota, leaving but four sorts the
parents of which were known before the recent work of Professor Hansen.
No cherry cultivated for its fruit is reported to have come from a
sport or a bud-mutation.
Cherries arising from seed sown without knowledge of either parent
or from natural seedlings are put down as chance seedlings; of these
there are 147.
The origin of 917 of the varieties here described is unknown.
The total number of cherries under discussion is 1,145.
To improve the cherry the breeder must know the material with which he
is working. The following is a brief discussion of the characters of
this fruit to be found in the technical descriptions of species and
varieties.
TREE AND FRUIT CHARACTERS OF THE CHERRY
Species of cherries have very characteristic trees. The merest
glance at the tree enables one to tell the Sweet Cherry, _Prunus
avium_, from the Sour Cherry, _Prunus cerasus_. The first named is
the larger of the two, especially reaching a greater height, is
pyramidal in shape, with branches erect and bearing much less foliage
than the Sour Cherry. The Sweet Cherry often lives for a century or
more--the Sour Cherry attains but the three score years and ten of
man. _Prunus cerasus_ is easily distinguished from _Prunus avium_ by
its comparatively low, roundish and never pyramidal head. So, too,
many of the varieties of either of these two species are readily
told in the orchard by the size or habit of the plant. Other species
are either shrubby or tree-like and their varieties may often be
identified from the spaciousness or dwarfness of its trees. Size
is rather more variable than other gross characters because of the
influence of environment--food, moisture, light, isolation, pests
and the like--yet size in a plant, or in the parts of a plant, is
a very reliable character when proper allowances have been made for
environment.
Habit of growth, unlike size, varies but little with changing
conditions and thus becomes a most important means of distinguishing
species and varieties and not infrequently sets the seal and sign of
desirability for an orchard cherry. More than any other character,
habit of growth gives what is called "aspect" to a cherry tree. Thus,
a species or a variety may be upright, spreading, round-topped,
drooping or weeping in habit of growth; the head may be open or dense
and may be formed by a central shaft with several whorls of branches
or by three or four trunk-like stems each with its scaffolding
branches. The trees may grow rapidly or slowly and may be long-lived
or short-lived. The trunks may be short and stocky, or long and
slender, straight or crooked, gnarled or smooth, these characters
often determining whether a cherry is manageable or unmanageable in
the orchard.
The degree of hardiness is a very important diagnostic character
for groups of cherries and often wholly indicates their value for
agriculture. Thus, the varieties of _Prunus avium_ are but little
hardier than the peach while those of _Prunus cerasus_ are as hardy
or hardier than the apple. The range of varieties as to hardiness
falls within that of the species and it is interesting to note that
in Europe, where the wild _Prunus avium_ is very common, in the many
centuries since the fruit has been under domestication, a cultivated
variety hardier than the wild Sweet Cherry has not been developed.
Cherries are designated in the technical descriptions as hardy,
half-hardy and tender.
Productiveness, age of bearing, and regularity of bearing are
distinctive and valuable characters of orchard cherries but not
of wild cherries. The care given the tree greatly influences
fruitfulness, yet the quantity of fruit produced is often a helpful
means of identifying a variety and is a character that must always
be considered by the plant-breeder. Age of bearing and regularity
of bearing are most important characters with the pome fruits, the
apple, in particular, but while worth considering with the drupes are
of relatively little value, all drupaceous fruits coming in bearing
at about the same time for the species and all bearing regularly, as
a rule, unless interfered with by some outside agency preventing the
setting or causing the dropping of fruit.
Immunity and susceptibility to diseases and insects are valuable
taxonomic characters of both species and varieties of cultivated
cherries. Thus, the varieties of _Prunus cerasus_ are very
susceptible to black knot (_Plowrightia morbosa_), while those of
_Prunus avium_ are almost immune. On the other hand, _Prunus avium_
is an inviting prey to San José scale (_Aspidiotus perniciosus_),
while _Prunus cerasus_ is but little injured, indeed, seldom attacked;
_Prunus mahaleb_ appears to be almost wholly immune to the powdery
mildew (_Podosphaera oxyacanthae_), while _Prunus avium_ and _Prunus
cerasus_ are much attacked, though Wood, a variety of _Prunus
avium_, is almost immune. The English Morello, a variety of _Prunus
cerasus_, is very subject to leaf spot (_Cylindrosporium padi_), while
Montmorency, of the same species, is nearly immune. These examples
can be multiplied many times by references to the discussions of
varieties, and represent only observations on the grounds and in the
neighborhood of this Station. They serve to show the great importance,
to the fruit-grower, the plant-breeder and the systematist, of natural
resistance to disease and insects.
Both the outer and the inner bark have considerable value in
determining species but are of little importance in identifying
varieties and have no economic value to the fruit-grower and hence
but little to the breeder. Smoothness, color, thickness and manner
of exfoliation are the attributes of the outer bark to be noted,
while the color of the inner bark is the only determinant and that
relatively unimportant. In young trees the bark of the cherry of all
species is smooth, glossy or even brilliant; but later it becomes
uneven, scaly and dull, usually ash-gray but varying in all of these
characters to an extent well worth noting for taxonomic purposes.
Cherries, in common with most trees, have a lighter colored bark in
cold than in warm regions, and in dry than in wet areas.
Branches and branchlets are very characteristic in both species
and varieties. The length, thickness, direction, rigidity and the
branching angle are valuable determining characters and very stable
ones, changing but little even with marked variations of soil and
climate. Thus, a Sweet Cherry tree can be told from a tree of the Sour
Cherry, or the English Morello can be distinguished from Montmorency
by branch characters as far as the outlines of the trees are
discernible. Few cherries bear spines but all are more or less spurred
and these spurs are quite characteristic even in varieties. With the
branchlets the length of the internodes should be considered and their
direction, whether straight or zigzag; also color, smoothness, amount
of pubescence, size and appearance of the lenticels, the presence
of excrescences, are all to be noted in careful study though all
are more or less variable, pubescence especially so, this character
being too often relied upon in descriptions by European botanists and
pomologists.
Leaf-buds vary greatly in different species in size, shape, color of
the buds and of their outer and inner scales and in the outline of the
scales. The angle at which the bud stands out from the branchlet is of
some taxonomic value. Vernation, or the disposition of the leaf-blade
in the bud, is a fine mark of distinction in separating the cherry
from other stone-fruits and while all cherry leaves are supposed to
be conduplicate, that is, folded by the midrib so that the two halves
are face to face, yet there are slight but important differences in
the conduplication of the leaves in both species and varieties. The
manner of bearing buds--whether single, in pairs, or in rosettes--must
be taken into account, with species at least, and differences in shape
and position of leaf and fruit-buds must be noted.
Leaves in their season are very evident and either collectively or
individually are valuable determinants of species and varieties.
Fruit-growers take little note of leaves, however, though they should
be taken into practical account, since their size and number often
indicate the degree of vigor. The variability of leaves is usually
within limits easily set and occurs most often in young plants,
in extremes of soil and climate, and on very succulent growths or
water-sprouts. Leaf-size is the most variable character of this
organ but is yet dependable in separating several species, as, for
example, _Prunus avium_ from _Prunus cerasus_, the leaves being very
much larger in the former than in the latter species. Leaf-forms are
very constant in species and varieties, hence especially valuable in
classification.
Much care has been taken to illustrate accurately the size and form of
cherry leaves in the color-plates in this text but it is impossible to
reproduce by color-printing the tints of the leaves, though these are
quite constant in both species and varieties.
Other characters of leaves taken into account in describing cherries
are thickness, roughness, and pubescence, all of which are somewhat
variable, being greatly influenced by climate and soil. Quite too much
stress is laid upon the value of pubescence on leaves in determining
groups, unless comparisons can be made between plants growing in
the same habitat. Possibly more important than any other part of
the leaf-blade, in the study of species at least, is the margin.
This in the cherry is always serrated and often sub-serrated. These
serrations are best studied at the middle of the sides of the leaves,
those at the base and apex often being crowded or wanting.
The petiole may be used to good advantage in distinguishing both
species and varieties. Thus, in consequence of the great length and
slenderness of the petiole of leaves of Sweet Cherries, the leaves
are always more or less drooping, while those of the Sour Cherry are
usually erect by reason of the petiole being short and strong. The
color of the petiole is said by some to be correlated with that of
the fruit--a statement that needs verification. The pubescence of the
petiole must be noted.
The position, size, shape and color of the glands on cherry leaves
must be noted as they are fairly constant guides. They are usually
on the petiole at the base of the leaf but are sometimes on the leaf
itself. The glands are commonly given as globular or reniform in shape
but there are often intermediate forms the shape of which is hard to
classify.
Stipules in this plant have considerable taxonomic value, having
some distinguishing marks not possessed by the leaves. Cherry leaves
springing from dormant leaf-buds have very small stipules, sometimes
so minute as hardly to be seen, but on the current year's growth the
stipules are larger, being largest at the tip of the branchlet. There
is considerable difference in the size of these organs in varieties
of the same species. Stipules of the cherry are nearly always borne
in pairs. The small stipules, appearing with the first leaves, drop,
at this Station, about the middle of June while those accompanying
the later leaves on the wood growth of the current year remain until
in July, there being a difference in varieties as to how long they
remain. All stipules are deeply toothed and bear glands of varying
color and shape on the serrations, the characters of both serrations
and glands offering some distinguishing marks for species and
varieties.
The flowers of cherries are very characteristic, as a study of the
color-plates of blossoms will show, furnishing a wholly distinctive
mark of species and helping to distinguish varieties. The flowers
are hermaphrodites and are borne in more or less dense, corymbose
clusters. Individual flowers in species and varieties vary in size,
shape, color and odor. The peduncles are long or short, as the case
may be; the corolla furnishes distinctions in size, shape and color
of petals; the calyces are chiefly distinguished by their glands and
the amount and character of the pubescence; while stamens and pistils
offer differences in size, color of their different parts and in the
number of stamens. In plums the reproductive organs differ greatly in
ability to perform their functions, some varieties being self-sterile.
In New York there seem to be no marked differences in fecundity in
cherries nor are there so frequently the malformations of reproductive
organs which are found in plums. The season of flowering is a fine
mark of distinction between species and varieties, a fact well brought
out by the chart on pages 80-81.
Of all organs, the fruit of the cherry is most responsive to
changed conditions and hence most variable, yet the fruits furnish
very valuable taxonomic characters in both botany and pomology. In
pomology, in particular, the fruits must be closely studied. Size,
shape, color, bloom, stem, cavity, apex, suture and skin are the
outward characters of which note must be made; while the color, aroma,
flavor and texture of the flesh are usually very characteristic. Both
species and varieties are well distinguished by the time of ripening
though there is much variation in ripening dates. The keeping quality
is scarcely taken into account with cherries but varies a great
deal, chiefly in accordance with firmness of the flesh. The flesh
of cherries, as in all drupaceous fruits, clings to the stone or is
wholly or partly free--a character of interest both to the systematist
and to the fruit-grower. The color of the juice, whether colorless
or red, is a plain and certain dividing line in both species and
varieties.
The pits of cherries are rather more lacking in distinction than in
other stone-fruits, plums for example, yet they must be accounted of
considerable value in determination and for this reason have been
included in all of the color-plates of varieties. Cherry-pits from
individual trees are almost lacking in differences except in size but
between species and varieties show many distinctions not only in size
but in shape, surfaces, grooves and ridges, in the ends and more or
less in the seeds within. Cherries of any variety grown on poor soils
or in incongenial climates tend to have large stones and little flesh,
while the pits are smaller and there is more flesh with the opposite
extremes in environment. As will be pointed out in the discussion of
the group of cherries known as the Dukes, many varieties have pits
with shrunken and abortive seeds coming, as we think, from the hybrid
origin of these cherries.
The several pages given to the discussion of the characters of
cherries are in preparation for a proper understanding of the
classifications and descriptions of species and varieties. We are
now ready for the classification of the species of cherries which
contribute or may contribute forms for cultivation either for their
fruits or as stocks upon which to grow edible cherries. The following
is a brief conspectus of the edible species of Prunus followed by a
fuller conspectus of the sub-genus Cerasus to which cherries belong.
A CLASSIFICATION OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES
The genus Prunus is variously delimited and divided by systematic
botanists. A simple, and from a horticultural point of view, a very
satisfactory classification, is to put almonds and peaches in one
sub-genus (Amygdalus), cherries in a second (Cerasus), plums and
apricots in a third (Euprunus), and to place the racemose cherries and
cherry-laurels, usually considered in Prunus, in another genus, Padus.
In this division of Prunus into three sub-genera we may assign to each
the following characters.
A. Leaves convolute, _i. e._, rolled in the bud (showing best in
the opening buds).[3]
_Euprunus._ Plums and apricots.
A.A. Leaves conduplicate, _i. e._, folded lengthwise along the midrib
in the bud.
B. Fruit more or less dry and hirsute; if juicy or glabrous the
blossoms appear long before the opening of the leaves;
fruits without stems.
_Amygdalus._ Almonds and peaches.
B.B. Fruit always juicy and usually glabrous; blooms appearing
with the leaves.
_Cerasus._ Cherries.
Of these several divisions we are here concerned only with Cerasus, to
which belong all fascicled cherries, the racemose, or Padus, cherries as
yet having little or no value as esculents. The genus Prunus is from
year to year being enlarged by the discovery of new species, the
additions to Cerasus in particular being numerous. Thus, a decade ago,
botanists placed in this sub-genus, at the outside, not more than a
score of species but Koehne, the most recent monographer of Cerasus,
describes 119 species. Of Koehne's species at least a dozen are more or
less cultivated for their fruits and a score or more are grown as
ornamentals.
The following species are listed by Koehne:[4]
SPECIES OF CHERRIES
Div. I. TYPOCERASUS Koehne.
Sect. 1 CREMASTOSEPALUM Koehne.
Subsect. 1. MAHALEB Koehne.
_Cerasus_ sect. _Mahaleb_ Roemer. _Fam. Nat. Syn._ =3=:79. 1847.
_Prunus_ subgen. _Cerasus_ sect. _Mahaleb_ Koehne. _Deutsche
Dendr._ 305. 1893.
Ser. 1. EUMAHALEB Koehne.
=1. Prunus mahaleb= Linnaeus. _Sp. Pl._ 472. 1753. Europe, Western
Asia.
Ser. 2. PARAMAHALEB Koehne.
=2. Prunus mollis= Walpers. _Rep._ =2=:9. Western North America.
=3. Prunus emarginata= Walpers. _Rep._ =2=:9. Western North America.
_Cerasus californica_ Greene. _Fl. Francis_ =1=:50.
=4. Prunus pennsylvanica= Linnaeus. _Syst._ ed 13 Suppl. 252. Eastern
North America.
Subsect. 2. EUCERASUS Koehne.
_Prunus_ sect. _Eucerasus_ Koehne. _Deutsche Dendr._ 306. 1893.
=5. Prunus fruticosa= Pallas. _Fl. Ross._ =1=:19. 1784. Europe to
Siberia.
=6. Prunus acida= C. Koch. _Dendr._ =1=:112. 1869. Southern Europe.
=7. Prunus cerasus= Linnaeus. _Sp. Pl_. 474. 1753. Europe, Western
Asia.
=8. Prunus avium= Linnaeus. _Fl. Svec._ ed =2=:165. 1755. Europe,
Western Asia.
Subsect. 3. PHYLLOMAHALEB Koehne.
Ser. 1. APHANADENIUM KOEHNE.
=9. Prunus maximowiczii= Ruprecht. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=15=:131. 1857.
_Prunus bracteata_ Franchet & Savatier. _Enum. Pl. Jap_. =2=:329.
1879.
_Prunus apetala_ Zabel. _Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges._ =13=:60 (not
Franchet & Savatier) 1904. Amur,
eastern Manchuria, Korea, Saghalin, Japan from Hokkaido to
Kiushiu.
=Prunus maximowiczii= aperta Komarow. _Act. Hort. Petrop._ =22=:5,
48. 1904. Manchuria from the Ussuri through Kirin to Mukden
and northern Korea
=10. Prunus pulchella= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:197. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
Ser. 2. MACRADENIUM Koehne.
=11. Prunus conadenia= Koehne. _l. c._ 197. Western Szechuan.
=12. Prunus pleiocerasus= Koehne. _l. c._ 198. Western Szechuan.
=13. Prunus macradenia= Koehne. _l. c._ 199. Western Szechuan.
=14. Prunus discadenia= Koehne. _l. c._ 200. Western Hupeh.
=15. Prunus szechuanica= Batalin. _Act. Hort. Petrop._ =14=:167. 1895.
Szechuan.
Subsect. 4. PHYLLOCERASUS Koehne.
=16. Prunus tatsienensis= Batalin. _Act. Hort. Petrop._ =14=:322.
1897. Szechuan.
=Prunus tatsienensis= adenophora (Franchet) Koehne. _Plant. Wils._
Pt. =2=:238. 1912.
_Prunus maximowiczii adenophora_ Franchet. _Pl. Delavay._ 195.
1889. Yunnan.
=Prunus tatsienensis= stenadenia Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt.
=2=:201. 1912. Western Szechuan.
=17. Prunus variabilis= Koehne. _l. c._ 201. Western Hupeh.
=18. Prunus pilosiuscula= (Schneider) Koehne. _l. c._ 202.
_Prunus tatsienensis pilosiuscula_ Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov.
Sp._ =1=:66. 1905. Western Hupeh and Szechuan.
=19. Prunus polytricha= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:204. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=20. Prunus rehderiana= Koehne. _l. c._ 205. Western Hupeh.
=21. Prunus venusta= Koehne. _l. c._ 239. Western Hupeh.
=22. Prunus litigiosa= Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._ =1=:65. 1905.
Hupeh.
=Prunus litigiosa abbreviata= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:205.
1912. Western Hupeh.
=23. Prunus clarofolia= Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._ =1=:67. 1905.
Szechuan.
Subsect. 5. PSEUDOMAHALEB Koehne.
=24. Prunus yunnanensis= Franchet. _Pl. Delavay._ 195. 1889. Yunnan.
=25. Prunus macgregoriana= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=240. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=26. Prunus henryi= (Schneider) Koehne. _l. c._ 240.
_Prunus yunnanensis henryi_ C. K. Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._
=1:=66 (in part) 1905. Yunnan.
=27. Prunus neglecta= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=241. 1912.
_Prunus yunnanensis henryi_ C. K. Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov.
Sp._ =1:=66 (in part) 1905. Yunnan.
Subsect. 6. LOBOPETALUM Koehne.
Ser. 1. HETEROCALYX Koehne.
=28. Prunus scopulorum= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=241. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=29. Prunus glabra= (Pampanini) Koehne.
_Prunus hirtipes glabra_ Pampanini. _Nuov. Giorn. Bot. Ital._
=17=:293. 1910; =18:=122. 1911. Hupeh.
=30. Prunus involucrata= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=206. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=31. Prunus hirtipes= Hemsley. _Jour. Linn. Soc._ =23:=218. 1887.
=32. Prunus schneideriana= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=242. 1912.
Chekiang.
=33. Prunus duclouxii= Koehne. _l. c._ 242. Yunnan.
=34. Prunus ampla= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=243. 1912. Szechuan.
=35. Prunus malifolia= Koehne. _l. c._ 207. Western Hupeh.
=Prunus malifolia rosthornii= Koehne. _l. c._ 243. Szechuan.
Ser. 2. CYCLAMINIUM Koehne.
=36. Prunus cyclamina= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=207. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=Prunus cyclamina biflora= Koehne. _l. c._ 243. Western China.
=37. Prunus dielsiana= Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._ =1:=68. 1905.
"_P. szechuanica_, var.?" or "_P. szechuanica dielsiana_
Schneider," _l. c._, not _P. szechuanica_ Batalin. Hupeh.
=Prunus dielsiana laxa= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=208. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=Prunus dielsiana conferta= Koehne. _l. c._ 244. Western Hupeh.
=38. Prunus plurinervis= Koehne. _l. c._ 208. Western Szechuan.
=39. Prunus rufoides= Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._ =1:=55. 1905.
Szechuan.
=40. Prunus hirtifolia= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2:=209. 1912.
Western Szechuan.
Sect. 2. =PSEUDOCERASUS= Koehne.
_Prunus_ subgen. _Cerasus_ sect. _Yamasakura_ Koidzumi. _Tokyo
Bot. Mag._ =25=:183. 1911.
Subsect. 7. HYPADENIUM Koehne.
=41. Prunus glandulifolia= Ruprecht & Maximowicz. _Mém. Sav. Étr.
Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_ =9:=87 (_Prim. Fl. Amur._) 1859. Amur.
Subsect. 8. SARGENTIELLA Koehne.
=42. Prunus pseudocerasus= Lindley. _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =6:=90.
1826. Cultivated in China.
_Cerasus pseudocerasus_ G. Don. Loudon _Hort. Brit._ 200. 1830.
_Prunus sieboldii_ Koidzumi. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =25:=184. 1911.
=Prunus pseudocerasus sieboldii= Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St.
Pétersburg_ =29:=102.
_Prunus paniculata_ Ker. _Bot. Reg._ =10:= t. 800. 1824, not
_Prunus paniculata_ Thunberg.
_Cerasus paniculata_ De Candolle. _Prodr._ =2:=539. 1825.
_Cerasus sieboldtii_ Carrière. _Rev. Hort._ 371. 1866.
_Prunus sieboldii_ Wittmack. _Gartenfl._ =51:=272. 1902.
_Prunus pseudocerasus serrulata sieboldtii_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot.
Mag._ =22:=102. 1908?
_Prunus serrulata serrulata sieboldtii_ Makino. _l. c._ =23:=74.
1909.
_Prunus pseudocerasus typica sieboldii_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ 182.
_Prunus pseudocerasus flore roseo pleno_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
_Prunus pseudocerasus naden_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
=Prunus pseudocerasus watereri= Koehne. _l. c._ 172. 1909.
_Cerasus wattererii_, cited by Lavallée _Icon. Arb. Segrez._ 119.
1885, as a synonym under _Cerasus pseudocerasus_?
_Cerasus watereri_ Goldring. _Garden_ =33:=416, fig. p. 420. 1888?
_Prunus serrulata serrulata wattererii_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._
=23:=75. 1909? (Horticultural)
=Prunus pseudocerasus virescens= Koehne.
_Prunus donarium_ Siebold. Rijks-Herbarium, Leyden.
=43. Prunus paracerasus= Koehne. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._ =7:=133. 1909.
Japan. (Horticultural)
=44. Prunus serrulata= Lindley. _Trans. Hort. Soc. London_ =7=:138.
1830.
_Prunus cerasus flore simplici_ Thunberg. _Fl. Jap._ 201. 1784.
_Prunus donarium_ Siebold. _Verh. Batav. Genoot._ =12:= No. 1. 68
(_Syn. Pl. Oecon._) 1827.
_Prunus jamasakura_ Siebold. _l. c._ 1827.
_Cerasus serrulata_ G. Don. Loudon _Hort. Brit_. 480. 1830.
_Prunus puddum_ Miquel. _Ann. Mus. Lugd.-Bat._ =2=:90, (in part,
not Wallich) 1865.
_Prunus pseudocerasus jamasakura glabra_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._
=22=:93. 1809.
_Prunus pseudocerasus jamasakura præcox_ Makino. _l. c._ 98.
1908.
_Prunus pseudocerasus jamasakura glabra præcox_ Makino. _l. c._
113.
_Prunus pseudocerasus serrulata glabra_ Makino. _l. c._ 101.
_Prunus pseudocerasus spontanea hortensis_ Koidzumi. _l. c._
=23=:183. 1909.
_Prunus cerasus flore pleno_ Thunberg. _Fl. Jap._ 201. 1784.
_Prunus serrulata_ Lindley. cf. supra.
_Cerasus serrulata_ G. Don. Loudon Arb. Brit. =2=:701, fig. 407.
1833.
_Cerasus pseudocerasus_ Lavallée. _Icon. Arb. Segrez._ 119, t. 36.
1885, (ubi citatur: _Cerasus maeda_ h.).
_Prunus pseudocerasus serrulata glabra fugenzo_ Makino. _Tokyo
Bot. Mag._ =22=:73. 1908.
_Prunus serrulata serrulata fugenzo rosea_ Makino. _l. c._
=23=:74. 1909.
_Prunus jamasakura elegans glabra_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ =25=:185.
1911.
_Prunus jamasakura speciosa_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ 186. Japan, Korea.
=Prunus serrulata albida= (Makino) Koehne.
_Prunus pseudocerasus hortensis flore simplici albo_ Maximowicz.
_Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_ =29=:102.
_Prunus pseudocerasus_ Stapf. _Bot. Mag._ 131: t. 8012. 1905.
_Prunus pseudocerasus serrulata sieboldii albida_ Makino. _Tokyo
Bot. Mag._ =22=:102. 1908.
_Prunus serrulata serrulata albida_ Makino. _l. c._ =23=:74. 1909.
_Prunus serrulata yashino_ Koehne. _Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges._
=18=:167. 1909.
_Prunus pseudocerasus yoshino_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
=Prunus serrulata lannesiana= (Carrière) Koehne. _Mitt. Deutsch.
Dendr. Ges._ =18=:167. 1909.
_Cerasus lannesiana_ Carrière. _Rev. Hort._ 198. 1872.
_Prunus pseudocerasus hortensis flore simplici carneo_ Maximowicz.
_Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_ =29=:102.
_Prunus serrulata serrulata lannesiana_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._
=23=:74. 1909.
_Prunus jamasakura speciosa nobilis_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ =25=:187.
1911.
=Prunus serrulata kriegeri= Koehne. _Gartenfl._ =52=:2 (nomen
nudum) 1902.
_Cerasus pendula kriegeri_ F. Späth ex Koehne.
=Prunus serrulata grandiflora= A. Wagner. _Gartenfl._ =52=:169, t.
1513a. 1903.
_Prunus pseudocerasus hortensis flore pleno viridi_ Maximowicz.
_Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_ =29=:102.
_Prunus pseudocerasus serrulata glabra viridiflora_ Makino. _Tokyo
Bot. Mag._ =22=:102 1908.
_Prunus serrulata serrulata viridiflora_ Makino. _l. c._ =23=:74.
1909.
_Cerasus donarium_ Siebold. Rijks-Herbarium, Leyden.
_Prunus pseudocerasus ukon_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
=Prunus serrulata ochichima= Koehne. _Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges._
=18=:169. 1909.
_Prunus serrulata serrulata fugenzo, 2. alborosea_ Makino. _Tokyo
Bot. Mag._ =23=:74. 1909.
_Prunus pseudocerasus ochichima_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
_Prunus pseudocerasus shirofugen_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
=Prunus serrulata hisakura= Koehne. _Gartenfl_. =51=:2, t. 1494 b.
1902.
_Cerasus caproniana flore roseo pleno_ Van Houtte. _Fl. des.
Serres_ =21=:141, t. 2238. 1875.
_Cerasus serratifolia rosea_ Carrière. _Rev. Hort._ 889, t. fig.
B. 1877.
_Prunus pseudocerasus hortensis flore semipleno roseo_ Maximowicz.
_Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_ =11=:699. 1883.
_Prunus pseudocerasus hisakura_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
_Prunus pseudocerasus benifugen_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
_Prunus pseudocerasus "New Red_." Koehne. (Horticultural)
_Prunus serrulata "W. Kou."_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
_Prunus jamasakura speciosa nobilis donarium_ Koidzumi. _Tokyo
Bot. Mag._ =25=:187. 1911.
=Prunus serrulata veitchiana= Koehne. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._
=9=:122. 1911.
_Cerasus pseudocerasus "James Veitch." Gartenfl._ =51=:497.
1902. (Horticultural)
=Prunus serrulata mucronata= Koehne. _Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges._
=18=:170. 1909.
_Prunus pseudocerasus hortensis flore pulcherrimo pleno candido_
Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_ =29=:102.
_Prunus cerasus flore roseo pleno_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
_Prunus serrulata flore pleno_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
=Prunus serrulata shidare-sakura= Koehne. _Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr.
Ges._ =18=:170. 1909.
_Prunus pseudocerasus hortensis flore carneo suffuso_ Maximowicz.
_Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_ =29=:102.
_Prunus pseudocerasus shidare-sakura_ Koehne. (Horticultural)
44 × 88? =Prunus affinis= Makino. =Prunus pseudocerasus jamasakura
×n incisa?= Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =22=:99. 1908. Japan.
=45. Prunus sargentii= Rehder. _Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges._
=17=:159. 1908.
_Prunus puddum_ Miquel. _Ann. Mus. Lugd.-Bat._ =2=:90 (in part,
not Wallich) 1865.
_Prunus pseudocerasus sachalinensis_ F. Schmidt. _Mém. Acad.
Sci. St. Pétersburg sér._ 7, 12: No. 2. 124.
_Prunus pseudocerasus spontanea_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St.
Pétersburg_ =29=:102.
_Prunus mume crasseglandulosa_ Miquel. Rijks-Herbarium, Leyden.
_Prunus pseudocerasus_ Sargent. _Garden and Forest_ =10=:462, fig.
58 (not Lindley) 1897.
_Prunus Sp. Zabel_. Beissner, Schelle & Zabel _Handb.
Laubholz-Ben._ 241. 1903.
_Prunus pseudocerasus borealis_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =22=:99.
1908.
_Prunus serrulata borealis_ Makino. _l. c._ =23=:75. 1909.
_Prunus pseudocerasus spontanea_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ 182.
_Prunus jamasakura elegans compta_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ =25=:186.
1911.
_Prunus jamasakura borealis_ Koidzumi. l. c. 187. Korea, Saghalin,
Japan.
=46. Prunus tenuiflora= Koehne. _Plant Wils._ Pt. =2=:209. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=47. Prunus wildeniana= Koehne. _l. c._ 249. Hupeh.
=48. Prunus leveilleana= Koehne. _l. c._ 250. Korea.
=49. Prunus sontagiæ= Koehne. _l. c._ 250. Korea.
=50. Prunus mesadenia= Koehne. _l. c._ 250. Nippon.
=51. Prunus parvifolia= (Matsumura) Koehne. _l. c._ 251.
_Prunus pseudocerasus parvifolia_ Matsumura. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._
=15=:101. 1901.
_Prunus pseudocerasus typica parvifolia_ Koidzumi. _l. c._
=23=:182. 1909.
_Prunus jamasakura elegans parvifolia_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ =25=:186.
1911. Japan.
=Prunus parvifolia aomoriensis= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt.
=2=:251. 1912. Northern Nippon.
=52. Prunus concinna= Koehne. _l. c._ 210. Western Hupeh.
=53. Prunus twymaniana= Koehne. _l. c._ 211. Western Szechuan.
Subsect. 9. CONRADINIA Koehne.
=54. Prunus conradinæ= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:211. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=55. Prunus helenæ= Koehne. _l. c._ 212. Western Hupeh.
=56. Prunus saltuum= Koehne. _l. c._ 213. Western Hupeh.
=57. Prunus pauciflora= Bunge._ Mém. Étr. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=2=:97 (_Enum. Pl. Chin. Bor._) 1835. Chili.
=58. Prunus sprengeri= Pampanini. _Nuov. Giorn. Bot. Ital_. =18=:230.
1911. Hupeh.
=59. Prunus yedoensis= Matsumura. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =15=:100. 1901.
Cultivated in the gardens of Tokyo.
Subsect. 10. SERRULA Koehne.
=60. Prunus majestica= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:252. 1912.
_Prunus puddum_ Franchet. _Pl. Delavay._ 197 (not Roxburgh
following Brandis) 1889.
_Prunus cerasoides tibetica_ Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._
=1=:54 (in part) 1905. Yunnan.
=61. Prunus serrula= Franchet. _Pl. Delavay_. 196. 1889. Yunnan.
=Prunus serrula tibetica= (Batalin) Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt.
=2=:213. 1912. Western Szechuan.
Subsect. 11. PUDDUM Koehne.
=62. Prunus campanulata= Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
29. 103.
_Prunus cerasoides_ Koidzumi. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =23=:181 (in part,
not D. Don) 1909. Fokien.
Cultivated in Japan.
=63. Prunus hosseusii= Diels. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._ =4=:289. 1907.
Siam.
=64. Prunus cerasoides= D. Don. _Prodr. Fl. Nepal._ 239. 1825.
_Prunus silvatica_ Roxburgh. _Hort. Beng._ 92. 1814.
_Cerasus phoshia_ Hamilton. De Candolle _Prodr._ =2=:535. 1825.
_Cerasus puddum_ Seringe. De Candolle _Prodr._ =2=:537. 1825.
_Prunus puddum_ Roxburgh. _Forest Fl. Brit._ Ind. 194. 1874.
Nepal.
=65. Prunus rufa= Steudel. _Nomencl_. Bot. =2=:404. 1841.
_Cerasus rufa_ Wallich. _Cat._ No. 721. 1829. Eastern Himalaya.
=66. Prunus trichantha= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:254. 1912.
_Prunus rufa_ Hooker. _Fl. Brit. Ind._ =2=:314 (in part) 1878.
Eastern Himalaya.
Subsect. 12. MICROCALYMMA Koehne.
=67. Prunus herincquiana= Lavallée. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:214. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=Prunus herincquiana biloba= (Franchet) Koehne. Western Hupeh.
_Prunus biloba_ Franchet in Herb. Paris. China.
=68. Prunus subhirtella= Miquel. _Ann. Mus. Lugd.-Bat._ =2=:91.
1865.
_Prunus subhirtella oblongifolia_ Miquel. _l. c._
_Prunus incisa_ Maximowicz. Bul. _Sci. Acad. St. Pétersburg_
=29=:99.
_Prunus pendula ascendens_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =7=:103.
1893?
_Prunus herincquiana ascendens_ Schneider. _Ill. Handb.
Laubholzk._ =1=:608. 1906.
_Prunus itosakra subhirtella_ Koidzumi. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._
=23=:180. 1908. Japan.
=Prunus subhirtella fukubana= Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =22=:118.
1908.
_Prunus itosakra ascendens amabilis_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ =23=:181.
1909?
=69. Prunus pendula= Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=29=:98.
_Prunus itosakura_ Siebold. _Verh. Batav. Genoot._ 12: No. 1. 68.
1830.
_Cerasus pendula flore roseo_ Siebold. _Cat._ =5=:31. 1863,
Maximowicz.
_Cerasus pendula rosea_ Dombrain. _Floral Mag._ 10. t. 536. 1871.
_Prunus subhirtella pendula_ Tanaka. _Useful Pl. Jap._ 153, fig.
620. 1895.
_Cerasus itosakura_ Siebold. Herb., Maximowicz. _l. c._
_Cerasus herincquiana_ Lavallée. _Icon. Arb. Segrez_, 117. 1885.
_Prunus miqueliana_ Schneider. _Ill. Handb. Laubholzk_, =1=:609
(not Maximowicz) 1906.
_Prunus herincquiana_ Schneider. _l. c._ 608.
_Cerasus pendula_ Siebold in herb., Koehne. _l. c._
_Prunus cerasus pendula flore roseo_ Koehne. _l. c._
(Horticultural)
_Prunus itosakra pendula_ Koidzumi. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =23=:180.
1909. Japan.
=70. Prunus taiwaniana= Hayata. _Jour. Coll. Sci. Tokyo_ =30=:87.
1911. Formosa.
=71. Prunus microlepis= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:256. 1912.
Hondo.
=Prunus microlepis ternata= Koehne. _l. c._ 256. Hondo.
Subsect. 13. CERASEIDOS (Siebold & Zuccarini) Koehne.
_Ceraseidos_ Siebold & Zuccarini. _Abh. Akad. Münch._ =3=:743
t. 5. 1843.
Ser. 1. PHYLLOPODIUM.
=72. Prunus setulosa= Batalin. _Act. Hort. Petrop._ =12=:165. 1892.
Eastern Kansu.
=73. Prunus phyllopoda= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:257. 1912.
Northern Shensi.
=74. Prunus canescens= Bois. _l. c._ 215. Western Hupeh.
=75. Prunus veitchii= Koehne. _l. c._.257. Western Hupeh.
Ser. 2. DROSERINA.
=76. Prunus giraldiana= Schneider. _Fedde Rep. Nov. Sp._ =1=:65.
1905. Northern Shensi.
=77. Prunus droseracea= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:215. 1912.
Western Szechuan.
Ser. 3. OXYODON.
=78. Prunus trichostoma= Koehne. _l. c._ 216. Western Szechuan.
=79. Prunus latidentata= Koehne. _l. c._ 217. Western Szechuan.
=80. Prunus micromeloides= Koehne. _l. c._ 218. Western Szechuan.
=81. Prunus oxyodonta= Koehne. _l. c._ 218. Western Szechuan.
=82. Prunus glyptocarya= Koehne. _l. c._ 219. Western Szechuan.
=83. Prunus podadenia= Koehne. _l. c._ 258. Western China.
=84. Prunus lobulata= Koehne. _l. c._ 220. Western Szechuan.
=85. Prunus stipulacea= Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=11=:689. 1883. Kansu.
=86. Prunus pleuroptera= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:221. 1912.
Western Szechuan.
=87. Prunus zappeyana= Koehne. _l. c._ 221. Western Hupeh.
=Prunus zappeyana? subsimplex= Koehne. _l. c._ 222. Western Hupeh.
=88. Prunus incisa= Thunberg. _Fl. Jap._ 202. 1784.
_Cerasus incisa_ Loiseleur. _Nouveau Duhamel_ =5=:33. 1812.
_Ceraseidos apetala_ Miquel. _Ann. Mus. Lugd.-Bat._ =2=:93 1865
(in part). Japan.
Ser. 4. EUCERASEIDOS.
=89. Prunus caudata= Franchet. _Pl. Delavay._ 196. 1889. Yunnan.
=90. Prunus iwagiensis= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:259. 1912.
Hondo.
91. Prunus nipponica Matsumura. _Tokyo Bot. Mag_. =15=:99. 1901.
_Prunus miqueliana_ Koidzumi. _l. c._ =23=:184 (not Maximowicz)
1909.
_Prunus ceraseidos_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=29=:103.
_Prunus apetala typica_ Schneider. _Ill. Handb. Laubholzk._
=1=:608. 1906. Japan.
=92. Prunus autumnalis= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:259. 1912.
_Prunus subhirtella autumnalis_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._
=22=:117. 1908. Hondo.
=93. Prunus kurilensis= Miyabe. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =24=:11. 1910.
_Prunus ceraseidos kurilensis_ Miyabe. _Mem. Boston Soc. Nat.
Hist._ =4=:226 (Fl. Kurile Isl.) 1890.
_Prunus incisa kurilensis_ Koidzumi. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =23=:184.
1909.
=94. Prunus nikkoensis= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:260. 1912.
Japan.
=95. Prunus miqueliana= Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=11=:692 (not Schneider) 1883. Japan.
=96. Prunus tschonoskii= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:261. 1912.
_Prunus ceraseidos_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=29=:103.
_Prunus apetala iwozana_ Schneider. _Ill. Handb. Laubholzk._
=1=:608. 1906. Japan.
=97. Prunus apetala= (Siebold & Zuccarini) Franchet & Savatier.
_Enum. Pl. Jap._ =2=:329. 1879 (not Zabel, cf. _P. maximowiczii_,
No. 9).
_Ceraseidos apetala_ Siebold & Zuccarini. _Abh. Akad. Münch._
=3=:743. t. 5. 1843.
_Prunus ceraseidos_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=29=:103. Japan.
Ser. 5. AMBLYODON.
_98. Prunus gracilifolia_ Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:223. 1912.
Western Hupeh.
=99. Prunus rossiana= Koehne. _l. c._ 223. Western Hupeh.
Div. II. MICROCERASUS (Spach, Roemer) Koehne.
_Cerasus_ sect. Microcerasus Spach. _Hist. Vég._ =1=:423. 1834.
_Microcerasus_ Webb. _Phytogr. Canar._ =2=:19. 1836-40.
Sect. 1. SPIRAEOPSIS Koehne.
Subsect. 1. MYRICOCERASUS Koehne.
=100. Prunus pumila= Linnaeus. _Mant. Pl._ 75. 1767. Eastern North
America.
=101. Prunus besseyi= Bailey. _Bul. Cor. Ex. Sta._ =70=:261. 1894.
Eastern North America.
Subsect. 2. SPIRAEOCERASUS Koehne.
=102. Prunus dictyoneura= Diels. _Bot. Jahrb._ 36, Beibl. 82, 57.
1905. Shensi.
=103. Prunus humilis= Bunge. _Mém. Étr. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=2=:97 (_Enum. Pl. Chin. Bor._) 1833.
_Prunus salicina_ Lindley. _Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond._ =7=:239.
1830.
_Prunus bungei_ Walpers. _Rep._ =2=:9 (not Moris) 1893. China.
=104. Prunus glandulosa= Thunberg. _Fl. Jap._ 202. 1784.
_Amygdalus pumila_ Linnaeus. _Mant._ =1=:74. 1767.
_Cerasus glandulosa_ Loiseleur. _Nouv. Duhamel_ =5=:33. 1825.
=Prunus glandulosa glabra= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:263.
1912.
_Prunus japonica glandulosa_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Soc. Nat. Mosc._
=54=:13. 1879. Japan.
=Prunus glandulosa glabra alba= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt.
=2=:263. 1912.
_Prunus japonica_ Lindley. _Bot. Reg._ 8:t. 1801. 1835.
=Prunus glandulosa glabra rosea= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt.
=2=:263. 1912.
_Prunus japonica typica flore roseo_ Maximowicz, in sched.
_Prunus japonica flor. simp._ Tanaka. _Useful Pl. Jap._ 153,
fig. 621. 1895.
_Prunus japonica glandulosa_ Matsumura. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._
=14=:136. 1900. Japan.
=Prunus glandulosa glabra albiplena= Koehne. _Plant Wils._ Pt.
=2=:264. 1912.
_Cerasus japonica multiplex_ Seringe. De Candolle _Prodr._
=2=:539 (in part) 1825.
_Prunus japonica flore pleno_ Siebold & Zuccarini. _Fl. Jap._
=1=:172 t. 90 f. 111. (in part) 1826.
_Prunus japonica_ Oudemans. _Neerlands Plantentuin_ t. 2. 1865.
_Prunus japonica flore albo pleno_ Lemaire. _Ill. Hort._ 5:
t. 183. 1858.
_Prunus japonica_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Soc. Nat. Mosc._ 54. 14
(in part) 1879.
_Prunus japonica multiplex_ Makino. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =22=:72
(in part) 1908. Japan.
=Prunus glandulosa purdomii= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:264.
1912. Northern China.
=Prunus glandulosa trichostyla= Koehne. _l. c._ 224.
=Prunus glandulosa trichostyla faberi= Koehne. _l. c._ 224.
_Prunus japonica_ J. Hutchinson. _Bot. Mag._ 135: t. 8260 (not
Thunberg) 1909. Shantung.
=Prunus glandulosa trichostyla paokangensis= (Schneider) Koehne.
_Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:264. 1912.
_Prunus japonica packangensis_ Schneider. _Fedde Rep. Nov. Sp._
=1=:53. 1905. Western Hupeh.
=Prunus glandulosa trichostyla sinensis= (Persoon) Koehne.
_Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:265. 1912.
_Amygdalus indica nana_ Plukenett. _Phytogr._ 1: t. 11. f. 4
(1691, new edit. 1769).
_Prunus sinensis_ Persoon. _Syn._ =2=:36. 1807.
_Cerasus japonica_ Seringe. De Candolle _Prodr._ =2=:539
(in part) 1825.
_Prunus japonica flore pleno_ Siebold & Zuccarini. _Fl. Jap._
=1=:172 t. 90 f. 111. (in part) 1826.
_Prunus japonica_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Soc. Nat. Mosc._ =54=:14
(in part) 1883. Northern Shensi.
=Prunus glandulosa salicifoli= (Komarov) Koehne. _Plant. Wils._
Pt. =2=:265. 1912.
_Prunus japonica salicifolia_ Komarov. _Act. Hort. Petrop._
=22=:754. 1904. Shing-king.
=105. Prunus pogonostyla= Maximowicz. _Bul. Soc. Nat. Mosc._
=54=:11. 1879.
_Prunus formosana_ Matsumura. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =15=:86. 1901.
=Prunus pogonostyla globosa= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:265.
1912. Formosa.
=Prunus pogonostyla obovata= Koehne. _l. c._ 265. Formosa.
=106. Prunus japonica= Thunberg. _Fl. Jap._ 201. 1784.
_Prunus japonica japonica_ Maximowicz. _Bul. Soc. Nat. Mosc._
=54=:12. 1879.
_Prunus japonica typica_ Matsumura. _Tokyo Bot. Mag._ =14=:135.
1900.
=Prunus japonica eujaponica= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:266.
1912.
=Prunus japonica eujaponica fauriei= Koehne. _l. c._ 266. Japan.
=Prunus japonica eujaponica oldhamii= Koehne. _l. c._ 266. Hupeh.
=Prunus japonica gracillima= Koehne. _l. c._ 266.
=Prunus japonica gracillima thunbergii= Koehne. _l. c._ 266.
_Prunus japonica thunbergii_ Koehne. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._
=8=:23. 1910. Cultivated in the Späth Arboretum near Berlin,
received from St. Petersburg.
=Prunus japonica gracillima engleri= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt.
=2=:266. 1912.
_Prunus japonica engleri_ Koehne. _l. c._ 266. Manchuria.
=Prunus japonica gracillima minor= Koehne. _l. c._ 267.
Cultivated in the Späth Arboretum, Berlin.
=Prunus japonica gracillima sphaerica= (Carrière) Koehne.
_l. c._ 267.
_Prunus japonica sphaerica_ Carrière. _Rev. Hort._ 468, fig.
163. 1890.
=Prunus japonica kerii= (Steudel) Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt.
2=:267. 1912.
_Prunus japonica_ Ker-Gawler. _Bot. Reg._= 1=: t. 27. 1815.
_Amygdalus pumila_ Sims. _Bot. Mag._ =47=: t. 2176. 1820.
_Prunus kerii_ Steudel. _Nomencl. Bot._ ed. 2, 403. 1841, which
cites "_Cerasus" japonica_ Ker-Gawler.
_Prunus japonica typica flore pleno_ Zabel. Beissner, Schelle &
Zabel _Handb. Laubholz-Ben._ 238. 1903. Chekiang. Cultivated
in England.
? =Prunus praecox= Carrière. _Rev. Hort._ 488, fig. 142, 143.
1892. Originated from sowings of _Prunus japonica sphaerica_
and supposed to be _Prunus japonica_ × _domestica._
=107. Prunus nakaii= Léveillé. Fedde _Rep. Nov. Sp._ =7=:198. 1909.
Korea.
=108. Prunus carcharias= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:267. 1912.
Szechuan.
Sect. 2. =AMYGDALOCERASUS= Koehne.
_Cerasus_ sect. _Microcerasus_ Spach.
_Microcerasus_ Webb. _Phytogr. Canar._ =2=:19 (1836-50);
Schneider _Ill. Handb. Laubholzk._ =1=:601. 1906.
_Prunus_ subgen. _Microcerasus_ Focke. Engler & Prantl _Natürl.
Pflanzenfam._ =3=:3, 54. 1888.
_Prunus_ sect. _Trichocerasus_ et subgen. _Microcerasus_ Koehne.
_Deutsche Dendr._ 302, 306. 1893.
=109. Prunus tomentosa= Thunberg. _Fl. Jap._ 203. 1784.--Siebold &
Zuccarini _Fl. Jap._ =1=:51, t. 22. 1826. Japan, western and
northern China.
=Prunus tomentosa spaethiana= Koehne. _Plant. Wils._ =Pt. 2=:269.
1912. Cultivated in European gardens.
=Prunus tomentosa graebneriana= Koehne. _l. c._ 269. Cultivated
near the Botanic Garden, Berlin-Dahlem.
=Prunus tomentosa insularis= Koehne. _l. c._ 269. Japan.
Cultivated in Japan.
=Prunus tomentosa souliei= Koehne. _l. c._ 269. Szechuan.
=Prunus tomentosa kashkarovii= Koehne. _l. c._ 269. Tibet.
=Prunus tomentosa endotricha= Koehne. _l. c._ 225. Western Hupeh.
=Prunus tomentosa breviflora= Koehne. _l. c._ 270. Northern
Shensi.
=Prunus tomentosa trichocarpa= (Bunge) Koehne. _Plant. Wils._
=Pt. 2=:270. 1912.
_Prunus trichocarpa_ Bunge. _Mém. Étr. Acad. Sci. St. Pétersburg_
=2=:96 (_Enum. Pl. Chin. Bor._) 1833. Northern China.
=Prunus tomentosa tsuluensis Koehne.= _Plant. Wils._ Pt. =2=:270.
1912. Northern Shensi.
=Prunus tomentosa heteromera Koehne.= _l. c._ 270. Szechuan.
=110. Prunus batalinii= (Schneider) Koehne. _l. c._ 270.
_Prunus tomentosa_, (?) _Batalinii_ Schneider. Fedde _Rep. Nov.
Sp._ =1=:52. 1905. Szechuan.
=111. Prunus cinerascens= Franchet. _Nouv. Arch. Mus. Paris._ sér. 2,
=8=:216 (_Pl. David._ II. 34) 1885. Western Szechuan.
=112. Prunus jacquemontii= (Edgeworth) Hooke. _Fl. Brit. Ind._
=2=:314. 1878. Afghanistan, Northwestern Himalaya, Tibet.
=113. Prunus incana= (Pallas) Steven. _Mém. Soc. Nat. Mosc._ =3=:263.
1812. Armenia, Georgia, Himalaya? Cf. =Cerasus hippophaeoides=
Bornmüller. _Oester. Bot. Zeit._ =49=:15. 1899. Cappadocia.
=114. Prunus griffithii= (Boissier) Schneider. _Ill. Handb.
Laubholzk._ =1=:606. 1906. Afghanistan.
=115. Prunus prostrata= Labillardière. _Icon. Pl. Syr._ =1=:15, t. 6.
1791. Southern Europe, Crete, Algier, Western Asia to Persia and
Syria. Cf. =Prunus bifrons= Fritsch. _Sitz. Akad. Wien_ =101=: pt.
1. 636, t. 3, fig. 1. 1892. Himalaya?
=116. Prunus brachypetala= (Boissier) Walpers. _Ann._ =1=:272.
1848-49. Southern Persia.
=117. Prunus microcarpa= C. A. Meyer. _Verz. Pfl. Caucas. Casp._ 166.
1831. Caucasia, Northern Persia. Cf. =Cerasus tortuosa= Boissier &
Haussknecht. Boissier _Fl. Or._ =2=:647. 1872. Antilibanon,
Cappadocia, Kurdistan.
=118. Prunus verrucosa= Franchet. _Ann. Sci. Nat. sér._ 6, =16=:280.
1883. Turkestan. Cf. =Prunus calycosus= Aitchison & Hemsley.
_Trans. Linn. Soc._ =3=:61, t. 8. 1888. Afghanistan.
=119. Prunus diffusa= (Boissier & Haussknecht) Schneider. _Ill. Handb.
Laubholzk._ =1=:606. 1906. Southwestern Persia.
The geographical distribution of these cherries is most interesting.[5]
From North America come but five species of cherries but two of which,
_Prunus besseyi_ and _Prunus pumila_, furnish food and these two as yet
are but sparingly grown; all five, however, are more or less used as
stocks.
Greene[6] has described, in addition to the five accepted ones, eleven
new species of true cherries from the far west of the type of _Prunus
emarginata_, some of which at least have furnished food to the Indians,
miners and trappers and may have horticultural possibilities for the
desert regions in which they are found either for fruit or as stocks.
From the western portion of the Old World, including all of Europe,
northern Africa, Asia Minor, Persia, Turkestan and Afghanistan come 14
species. From this region, though the number of species as compared with
East Asia is small, we have all of the cultivated esculent cherries, if
possibly _Prunus tomentosa_ be excepted. Though nearly all of the
species of this large territory are found--possibly all originated
there--in the southeastern part of Europe and the adjoining southwestern
part of Asia, yet they seem, with one or two exceptions, to be quite
distinct from the species of the eastern half of the Old World--the
Himalaya Mountains separating the two regions. It is probable that when
west central Asia has been as well explored botanically as the east
central part of the continent, many new species will be added to Prunus
and its sub-genus Cerasus.
It is in the eastern half of the Old World that the cherry flora is
richest. More than 100 of the 119 species of Cerasus recognized by
Koehne are found in the Himalaya Mountains and the region to the east
including Japan and the Kuril Islands. Yet out of all of this wealth of
raw material only _Prunus tomentosa_ has been truly domesticated as an
esculent though possibly a score of these species are well-known
ornamentals. Of the 100 eastern Asiatic species about 75 belong to
China--the remainder to Formosa, Siam and Japan with its islands.
Happily these Chinese cherries are being introduced, but a few at a
time, it is true, to Europe and America and it can hardly be otherwise
than that they will enrich horticulture as they are domesticated,
hybridized or used as a consort upon which to grow the cherries now
known to cultivation. In particular, it may be expected that cherries
for the cold north and the bleak plains of our continent will be evolved
from the Asiatic species better suited to these regions than the
cultivated cherries we now grow.
The number and diversity of the species of cherries which this brief
review of Cerasus shows to exist suggest that our cultivated cherry
flora is but begun. There can be no question but that others of these
species than the few that have been domesticated will yield to
improvement under cultivation and furnish refreshing fruits. It is just
as certain that new types, as valuable perhaps as the hybrid Dukes we
now have, can be produced through hybridization. In North America, we
have no satisfactory stock for cultivated Sweet and Sour Cherries. Both
of the stocks now commonly used, the Mazzard and the Mahaleb, as we
shall see, have weaknesses that unfit them for general use. Surely out
of the great number of forms we have just listed a better stock than
either of the two named can be found. No doubt, too, many of these new
species, even though they do not furnish food, will prove valuable
timber or ornamental trees.
We are ready now for a more detailed discussion of the cultivated
species of cherries.
[3] The leaves are conduplicate in vernation in a few species of
American plums; these species are intermediate between plums and
cherries.
[4] The species are given as classified by Koehne, _Plantae
Wilsonianae_ Pt. =2=:237-271. 1912. The liberty has been taken of
changing the form of Koehne's citations to conform to that used
at this Station. For the sake of brevity some of the citations
of the original author have been omitted. Space does not permit
the publication of Koehne's system of classification. This may be
found in _Plantae Wilsonianae_ Pt. =2=:226-237. 1912.
Conservative botanists will hardly accept all of Koehne's species,
in describing which the author tells us he labored under the
difficulty of paucity of material and that as more material comes
to hand there must, therefore, be revisions. These species are
provisionally accepted in _The Cherries of New York_ under the
belief that botany and horticulture are best served by giving
names freely so that all forms to which reference may need to be
made may thus be better identified.
The botanical student of Cerasus is referred to Schneider's
comprehensive discussion of Prunus in his _Handbuch der
Laubholzkunde_ =1=:589-637. 1906 and =2=:973-993; also Koehne's
monographs of Cerasus, Sargent, C. S., _Plantae Wilsonianae_ Pt.
=2=:197-271. 1912. Profitable though it might be, space does not
permit in _The Cherries of New York_ a botanical discussion of
other than the species cultivated for their fruits.
[5] Koehne has presented the results of a careful study of the
distribution of cherries in _Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges._ 168-183.
1912.
[6] Greene (_Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash._ =18=:55-60. 1905), preferring
Cerasus to Prunus as a generic name for racemose cherries, gives
the following new species: _Cerasus californica_ (_Fl. Francis_.
50. 1891) from the hills of middle western California; _Cerasus
crenulata_ from the Mongolian Mountains, New Mexico; _Cerasus
arida_ inhabiting the borders of the desert at the eastern base
of the San Bernardino Mountain, California; _Cerasus prunifolia_
found in the mountains of Fresno County, California; _Cerasus
rhamnoides_ collected at Mud Springs, Amador County, California;
_Cerasus kelloggiana_ from the middle Sierra Nevada Mountains in
California; _Cerasus padifolia_ collected in the foothills near
Carson City, Nevada; _Cerasus obliqua_ described from a single
specimen from Oroville, California; _Cerasus parviflora_ known
only from Mt. Shasta, California; _Cerasus obtusa_ from the arid
interior of southeastern Oregon; and _Cerasus trichopetala_ found
at Columbia Falls, Montana. The type specimens of these eleven
species are in the National Herbarium at Washington.
PRUNUS CERASUS Linnaeus.
I. Linnaeus _Spec. Pl._ 474. 1753.
_P. austera._ 2. Ehrhart _Beitr._ =5=:160. 1790.
_P. acida._ 3. Ehrhart _l. c._ 1790.
_P. aestiva._ 4. Salisbury _Prodr._ 356. 1796.
_P. plena._ 5. Poiret, in Lamarck _Enc. Méth. Bot._ =5=:671. 1804.
_P. rosea._ 6. Poiret, in Lamarck _l. c._ 1804.
_P. Juliana._ 7. Reichenbach _Fl. Germ. Exc._ 643. 1832, not
Poiret in Lamarck, 1805.
_P. hortensis._ 8. Persoon _Syn. Pl._ =2=:34. 1807.
_P. Marasca._ 9. Reichenbach _Fl. Germ. Exc._ 644. 1832.
_P. oxycarpa._ 10. Bechstein _Forst. Bot._ =5=:424. 1843.
_P. vulgaris._ 11. Schur _Enum. Pl. Transsilv._ 954. 1866.
_Cerasus vulgaris._ 12. Miller _Gard. Dict._ ed. 8:No. 1. 1768.
_C. hortenses._ 13. Miller _l. c._ No. 3. 1768.
_C. acida._ 14. Borkhausen, in Roemer _Arch. Bot._ =1=:11, 38.
1796.
_C. austera._ 15. Borkhausen, in Roemer _l. c._ 1796.
_C. Caproniana._ 16. De Candolle _Fl. Fran._ ed. 3, =4=:842. 1805.
_C. nicotianaefolia._ 17. Hort. ex De Candolle _Prodr._ =2=:536.
1825.
_C. bigarella._ 18. Dumortier _Fl. Belg._ 91. 1827.
_C. effusa._ 19. Host _Fl. Austr._ =2=:6. 1831.
_C. Marasca._ 20. Host _l. c._ 1831.
_C. Bungei._ 21. Walpers _Rep._ =2=:9. 1843.
_C. Heaumiana._ 22. Roemer _Syn. Rosifl._ 69. 1847.
_C. tridentina._ 23. Roemer _l. c._ 76. 1847.
_C. Rhexii._ 24. Hort. Gall. ex Van Houtte _Fl. Serres, sér._ 2,
=7=:159. 1868.
_C. cucullata._ 25. Hort. ex Koch _Dendrol._ =1=:6. 1869.
[Illustration: _PRUNUS CERASUS_ (AMARELLE GROUP)]
Tree low, reaching a height of twenty to thirty feet, diffuse,
open-headed, round-topped or spreading, often without a central
leader; trunk at maturity a foot in diameter; bark reddish-brown
overlaid with ashy-gray, smooth or sometimes roughened; branches
spreading, slender and more or less drooping; branchlets slender
and willowy, glabrous, reddish-brown becoming darker and
overspread with ashy-gray; lenticels small, numerous, conspicuous,
raised.
Leaves resinous at opening, more or less erect, very numerous,
three to four inches long and from one-half to two inches wide,
obovate to oval, folded upward, thick and firm in texture; upper
surface dark green, smooth, the lower surface paler green, with
more or less pubescence; apex taper-pointed or acute, base abrupt
or acute; margins finely serrate, often doubly so, teeth tipped
with small, dark glands; petioles from a half-inch to two inches
long, slender, grooved, with a few hairs on the upper surface,
tinged with red; glands from one to four, usually small, variously
colored, globose or reniform, usually at the base of the blade;
stipules small, lanceolate, narrow, finely serrate, early caducous.
Winter-buds small, short, obtuse or pointed, plump and free,
arranged singly or in clusters; leaf-scars usually prominent;
flowers appearing with or after the leaves, showy, an inch
across, white; borne in dense or scattered, very scaly clusters
and in twos, threes and fours on one-year-old wood; pedicels
from a half to an inch and a half in length, slender, green and
glabrous; calyx-tube obconic, glabrous, green or tinged with red;
calyx-lobes broadly obtuse or acute, glabrous on both surfaces,
reflexed, margin serrate, faintly red; petals white, roundish or
oval to obovate, entire or crenate, sessile or nearly so; stamens
about thirty, filaments one-fourth of an inch in length; anthers
yellow; pistils about as long as the stamens, glabrous.
Fruit roundish-oblate or cordate, sides slightly compressed,
about three-fourths of an inch in diameter; suture lacking or
indistinct; cavity well marked, usually abrupt; apex usually
depressed; color from light to dark red; dots numerous, small,
russet, more or less conspicuous; stem slender, from a half-inch
to two inches in length, glabrous, without bloom; skin usually
separating readily from the pulp; flesh dark red, with dark
colored juice or pale yellow with colorless juice, tender,
melting, sprightly, more or less acidulous, sometimes astringent;
stone free or more or less clinging, roundish, pointed or blunt,
smooth, less than a half inch in diameter; ventral suture usually
ridged, sometimes smooth.
The numerous synonyms of _Prunus cerasus_ indicate the state of
confusion which prevails in the scientific nomenclature of the Sour
Cherry. Yet the names given are scarcely a tithe of those that have been
discarded or superseded for a whole or a part of this species by
botanists. Happily, there is no language in which there is a
possibility of confusing the Sour Cherry with the other two or three
species of cultivated cherries if the common names be used. That men,
learned or unlearned, speaking in their mother tongues distinguish
species of cherries so readily by their common names, is ample excuse
for not attempting to give in a pomological work all of the Latin names
of the Sour Cherry that have been used by the many men who have at one
time or another attempted to classify the plants in Prunus. Those here
published are from botanists who have contributed most to the knowledge
of the species.
_Prunus cerasus_ is the Sour Cherry, or Pie Cherry, of many
languages--grown and esteemed in temperate climates the world over and
probably the most widely distributed of all tree fruits. The species
is found truly wild, as we have set forth in detail in the following
chapter, in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. It is a frequent
escape from cultivation, multiplying from seed distributed by birds
or human agencies or growing from suckers which spring so freely from
the roots as to make the species unfit for a stock in orchard work.
The number of cultivated varieties of _Prunus cerasus_ listed in _The
Cherries of New York_ is 270. Sour Cherries cultivated for their fruits
constitute two distinct groups, each of which is again divided into
many varieties. The two groups vary more or less in both tree and
fruit but have a constant difference only in a single, very easily
distinguished character--the juice in the fruits of one is red, in the
other it is colorless.
The cherries with colorless juice are the Amarelles, from the Latin for
bitter, a term probably first used by the Germans but now in general use
wherever these cherries are grown, though the English often designate
them as Kentish cherries and the French as Cerisier Commun. These
Amarelles are pale red fruits, more or less flattened at the ends.
Despite the derivation of the name Amarelle, they have less bitterness
than the other group of varieties of the Sour Cherry. They are also less
acid than the darker colored cherries and are therefore more suitable
for eating out of hand while the dark colored cherries are almost
exclusively culinary fruits. The common representatives of this group
are Early Richmond, Montmorency and the various cherries to which the
word Amarelle is affixed, as the King Amarelle and the Späte Amarelle.
The second group, varieties with reddish juice and usually with very
dark fruits which are more spherical or cordate in shape than the
Amarelles, comprises the Morellos of several languages or the Griottes
of [Illustration: _PRUNUS CERASUS_ (MORELLO GROUP)] the French. The
first of these terms has reference to the color, the word Morello coming
from the Italian meaning blackish while Griotte, from the French,
probably is derived through agriotte from aigre, meaning sharp, in
reference to the acidity of these cherries. Weichsel is the German group
name for these cherries, rather less commonly used than the other two
terms. The trees of the Morello-like varieties are usually smaller,
bushier and more compact than those of the Amarelles. The branches, as a
rule, are more horizontal, often drooping, are less regularly arranged
and are more slender. The leaves, in typical varieties, are smaller,
thinner, a darker green and are pendant while those of the Amarelles are
either inclined to be upright or horizontal; the leaves are also toothed
less deeply and more regularly. These differences in the leaves are well
shown in the color-plates of the varieties of the two groups. There are
differences, also, in the inflorescence and the floral organs in the
extreme types but these disappear in the varieties that connect the two
forms. The typical varieties of this group are English Morello, Ostheim,
Olivet, Brusseler Braune, Vladimir and Riga.
Attempts to give precise distinctions between the fruits and trees of
the two groups fail because the varieties constituting them hybridize
freely making it impossible, with the more or less blended characters,
to classify accurately. The group name indicates but little more than
whether the cherries have a colored or a colorless juice--a distinction
well worth while for the fruit-grower.
Ehrhart called Sour Cherries with colorless juice _Prunus acida_ and
those with dark colored juice _Prunus austera_. To some extent botanists
have followed Ehrhart's designations. Linnaeus thought the two groups
sufficiently distinct to be botanical varieties of the species and
denominated the cherry with colorless juice _Prunus cerasus caproniana_
and the one with colored juice _Prunus cerasus austera_.
A third division of the species is the Marasca cherry from which is made
maraschino, a distilled liqueur much used in Europe as a drink and in
Europe and America in the manufacture of maraschino cherries. The
Marasca cherry is a native of the province of Dalmatia, Austria, where
the trees grow wild and are now sparingly cultivated. In 1831 Host gave
this form the name _Cerasus marasca_ and a year later Reichenbach
described it as _Prunus marasca_. Botanists now very generally include
it in the species under discussion and Schneider[7] makes it a botanical
variety, _Prunus cerasus marasca_, a disposition which we believe to be
the best. The Marasca cherries differ from the other cultivated forms
chiefly in the greater vigor of the trees, relatively finer serrations
of the leaves, longer stipules and a more compact inflorescence. The
fruits are much smaller than in the common Sour Cherries, are deep red
or almost black in color and have intensely red flesh and juice. The
cherries are very acid with a bitter taste that gives flavor to the
maraschino made from them.
Besides these divisions of the species cultivated for their fruits
botanists describe several botanical forms which either have no
horticultural value or are cultivated exclusively as ornamentals. It is
not necessary to discuss these in a pomological work. Of these botanical
derivatives of _Prunus cerasus_, Schneider enumerates nine and three
hybrids between this and other species.[8]
[7] Schneider, C. K. _Handb. Laubh_. =1=:615. 1906.
[8] Schneider, C. K. _Handb. Laubh._ =1=:1906; =2=:1912.
PRUNUS AVIUM Linnaeus.
1. Linnaeus _Fl. Suec._ ed. =2=:165. 1755.
_P. nigricans_. 2. Ehrhart _Beitr._ =7=:126. 1792.
_P. varia_. 3. Ehrhart _l. c._ 127. 1792.
_P. sylvestris_. 4. Persoon _Syn. Pl._ =2=:35. 1807.
_P. dulcis_. 5. Miller ex Reichenbach _Fl. Germ. Exc._ 644. 1832.
_Cerasus nigra_. 6. Miller _Gard. Dict._ ed. 8: No. 2. 1768.
_C. Avium_. 7. Moench _Méth._ 672. 1794.
_C. varia_. 8. Borkhausen, in Roemer _Arch._ 1., =2=:38. 1796.
_C. Juliana_. 9. De Candolle _Fl. Fran._ =4=:483. 1805.
_C. duracina_. 10. De Candolle _l. c._ 1805.
_C. rubicunda_. 11. Bechstein _Forstb._ 160, 335. 1810.
_C. intermedia_. 12. Host _Fl. Austr._ =2=:7. 1831, not Loisel. in
Duham. 1812.
_C. decumana_. 13. Delaunay ex Seringe, in De Candolle _Prodr._
=2=:536. 1825.
_C. macrophylla_. 14. Sweet Hort. _Brit. ed._ =1=:485. 1827.
_C. dulcis_. 15. Borkhausen ex Steudel _Nom. Bot._ ed. sec.,
=1=:331. 1840.
_C. pallida_. 16. Roemer _Syn. Rosifl._ 69. 1847.
_C. heterophylla_. 17. Hort. ex Koch _Dendrol._ =1=:106. 1869.
_C. asplenifolia_. 18. Hort. ex Koch _l. c._ 1869.
_C. salicifolia_. 19. Hort. ex Koch _l. c._ 1869, not Ser. in De
Candolle. 1825.
[Illustration: _PRUNUS AVIUM_ (YELLOW SPANISH)]
[Illustration: _PRUNUS AVIUM_ (DOUBLE FLOWERING)]
Tree reaching a height of thirty to forty feet, vigorous,
upright-spreading, open-topped, semi-hardy, usually with a central
leader; trunk a foot or more in diameter roughened; branches
rather stocky, smooth, dull ash-gray, with few small lenticels;
branchlets thick, long, with long internodes, grayish-brown,
smooth, with small, inconspicuous lenticels.
Leaves resinous at opening, more or less drooping, numerous,
four to six inches long, two to three inches wide, strongly
conduplicate, oblong-ovate, thin; upper surface dark green, rugose
or sometimes smooth; lower surface dull green, more or less
pubescent; apex acute, base more or less abrupt; margin coarsely
and doubly serrate, glandular; petiole one and three-fourths
inches long, slender, dull red, with from one to three small,
globose, reddish glands on the stalk; stipules small, lanceolate,
finely serrate, early caducous.
Buds rather small, of medium length, pointed, appressed or
free, arranged singly or in small, scaly clusters at the tips
of branchlets or on short spurs; leaf-scars prominent; blooming
with or after the leaves; flowers white, one and one-quarter
inches across; in clusters of two or three; pedicels one inch
long, slender, glabrous; calyx-tube green or with a faint red
tinge, brownish-yellow within, campanulate; calyx-lobes faintly
tinged with red, long, acute, margin serrate, glabrous within and
without, reflexed; petals oval, entire or crenate, tapering to a
short, blunt claw; stamens nearly one-half inch long, thirty-five
or thirty-six; anthers yellow; pistil glabrous, shorter than the
stamens.
Fruit ripening in early July; about an inch in diameter, cordate;
cavity deep, wide, abrupt; suture a line; apex roundish or
pointed; color ranging from yellow through red to purplish-black;
dots numerous, small, russet, inconspicuous; stem tinged with
red, one and one-half inches long, adherent to the fruit; skin
toughish, adherent to the pulp; flesh yellow, red, or dark purple
with colorless or colored juice, tender to firm, sweet; stone
semi-clinging, three-eighths of an inch long, not as wide as long,
elliptical, flattened, blunt, with smooth surfaces.
Through its cultivated varieties _Prunus avium_ is everywhere known in
temperate climates as the Sweet Cherry. In the wild state it is
variously called Mazzard, Bird, Wild, Crab and the Gean cherry. It is
not as hardy a species as _Prunus cerasus_ and is, therefore, less
generally grown but still is a favorite orchard, dooryard and roadside
plant in all mid-temperate regions. It refuses to grow, however, in the
warmest and coldest parts of the temperate zones. Wherever the species
thrives as an orchard plant it is to be found growing spontaneously
along fences and roadsides and in open woods from seeds distributed by
birds. The fruits of these wild Sweet Cherries are usually small and the
flesh thin and dry, often unpalatable; but, on the other hand, trees are
sometimes found as escapes from cultivation which rival in their
products the orchard-grown cherries. It is from reverted seedlings that
the description of the species herewith given has been made. The number
of cultivated varieties of _Prunus avium_ listed in _The Cherries of New
York_ is 549.
The habitat of the species and its history as a cultivated plant are
given in the following chapter. A further point of horticultural
interest as regards its habitat is that wherever found truly wild, as in
its original home in southern and central Europe and Asia Minor, it is
to be found in moderately dry, calcareous soils and seldom in the shade,
preferring always warm, sunny sites, as gravelly or stony hillsides.
These predilections cling to the species in its cultivated varieties.
_Prunus avium_ differs from _Prunus cerasus_ in an important
horticultural character as the two species grow spontaneously--the
former suckers from the root little or not at all, making it a suitable
plant for a stock in orchard work, while the latter suckers so much as
to make it unfit for use as a stock.
_Prunus avium_ is variously divided by botanists and pomologists.
Whatever distinct forms of the species may exist in the wild state, they
are now interminably confused by hybridization under cultivation. It is
impossible to divide the species into botanical varieties from the
characters of the horticultural varieties, as many botanists have
attempted to do. The species can be roughly divided into two pomological
groups, the distinguishing character being the texture of the flesh.
Sweet Cherries with soft, tender flesh form one group known by
pomologists under the French group name Guigne or the English Gean.
These are also the Heart cherries of common parlance. These soft-fruited
cherries may again be divided into dark colored varieties with reddish
juice and light colored sorts with colorless juice. Typical light
colored Geans are Coe, Ida, Elton and Waterloo; dark colored ones are
Black Tartarian, Early Purple and Eagle. It is to this group of cherries
that Linnaeus gave the varietal name _Juliana_ and De Candolle the
specific name _Cerasus Juliana_.
The second group is distinguished by the firm, breaking flesh of the
fruits--the Bigarreaus of several languages, the name originally having
reference to the diverse colors of the fruits. This group is further
divisible in accordance with color of fruit and juice into black
Bigarreaus and light Bigarreaus. Chief of the black cherries falling
into this division are Windsor, Schmidt and Mezel; of the light ones,
which are much more numerous, Yellow Spanish and Napoleon are
representative sorts. Linnaeus called these hard-fleshed cherries
_Prunus avium duracina_; De Candolle called them _Cerasus duracina_; K.
Koch, _Prunus avium decumana_; and Roemer, _Cerasus bigarella_.
Besides these two orchard forms of _Prunus avium_ several other
horticultural forms, quite as distinct or even more so, are grown as
ornamentals, some of which are listed as distinct species or as
botanical varieties of _Prunus avium_. To add to the confusion, a number
of Latinized garden names are more or less commonly applied to these
ornamental Sweet Cherries. Schneider,[9] in revising the genus Prunus,
names four botanical forms of _Prunus avium_ and two natural hybrids
with other species.
[9] Schneider, C. K. _Handb. Laubh._ =1=:1906; =2=:1912.
PRUNUS AVIUM × PRUNUS CERASUS
The Duke cherries, long placed by most pomologists and botanists in a
botanical variety of _Prunus avium_, are unquestionably hybrids between
the Sweet Cherry and the Sour Cherry. A study of the characters of the
varieties of the Duke cherries shows all gradations between _Prunus
cerasus_ and _Prunus avium_, though, in the main, they resemble the
latter more than the former, differing from the Sweet Cherries most
noticeably in having an acid flesh. Sterility is a common attribute of
hybridism. In this respect the Dukes behave like most hybrids. In
several Duke cherries all of the seeds collected at this Station are
sterile; in others, most of them are sterile and in none are the seeds
as fertile as in varieties known to be pure bred as to species. So, too,
shrunken pollen grains indicate hybridity. A study of the pollen of the
Duke cherries shows many grains, the greater proportion, to be abnormal,
a condition not found in the pollen of varieties true to species. May
Duke, Reine Hortense and Late Duke are the leading hybrid varieties.
[Illustration: PRUNUS AVIUM × PRUNUS CERASUS (REINE HORTENSE)]
There are dark colored Duke cherries with reddish juice and light
colored sorts with uncolored juice, just as in the two parent species.
May Duke is a typical variety with colored juice while Reine Hortense is
probably the best-known cherry among these hybrids with uncolored juice.
About 65 of the cherries listed in _The Cherries of New York_ are
"Dukes," or hybrids between the Sweet and the Sour Cherry.
The name Duke comes from the variety May Duke which is a corruption of
Médoc, a district in the department of Geronde, France, from whence this
variety came. The cherries of this group are known as Dukes only in
England; in France the name Royale is similarly used.
These hybrid cherries have been placed in a distinct botanical group by
several botanists. They constitute the _Cerasus regalis_ Poiteau and
Turpin (_Traite des Arb. Fruit_. 123); the _Cerasus bigarella regalis_
Roemer (_Syn. Monogr_. =3=:69); and the _Prunus avium regalis_ Bailey
(Cyc. _Am. Hort_. 1453. 1901).
PRUNUS MAHALEB Linnaeus.
1. Linnaeus _Sp. Pl._ 474. 1753. 2. Bailey _Cyc. Am. Hort._
=3=:1451. 1901. 3. Schneider _Handb. Laubh._ =1=:617. 1906.
_Cerasus mahaleb._ 4. Miller _Gard. Dict._ ed. 8: No. 4. 1759.
_Padus mahaleb._ 5. Borkhausen _Handb. Forstb._ =2=:1434. 1803.
Tree small, slender, vigorous, upright-spreading, open-topped;
branches roughened, ash-gray over reddish-brown; branchlets
numerous, slender and firm-wooded, with short internodes, dull
gray, glabrous, with very numerous large, raised lenticels.
Leaves numerous, an inch in length, one and one-fourth inches
wide, ovate to obovate, thick, leathery; upper surface dark green,
glossy, smooth; lower surface light green, slightly pubescent
along the midrib; apex and base abrupt; margin finely crenate,
with reddish-brown glands; petiole one-half inch long, slender,
greenish, with none or with from one to three small, globose,
greenish glands variable in position.
Buds small, short, obtuse, appressed or free, arranged singly as
lateral buds and in clusters on small, slender spurs; flowers
appearing late, after the leaves, small, averaging one-half
inch across, white, fragrant; borne in clusters of six to eight
scattered on a main stem an inch in length, with the terminal
pedicels one-quarter inch long and basal pedicels one-half inch
long; pedicels slender, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube green,
campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes narrow, entire, glabrous,
reflexed; petals white, small, separated, ovate, tapering to
short, narrow claws; filaments one-fourth inch long; pistil
glabrous, about equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit matures about the middle of July; very small, one-fourth
inch long, one-third inch wide, roundish-ovate; cavity shallow
and abrupt; suture shallow or a mere line; apex roundish to
slightly pointed, with stigma usually adherent; color black;
stem slender, length of corymb about one and one-half inches;
length of fruit-stem about one-quarter inch; skin thick, tough;
flesh reddish-black, with scant reddish-black juice, tender and
soft, very astringent, sour, not edible; stone free or nearly so,
very small, averaging nine thirty-seconds inch long and seven
thirty-seconds inch wide, ovate, slightly flattened, with pointed
apex; ventral suture prominent.
_Prunus mahaleb_ is now a wild inhabitant of all southern Europe as far
north as central France, southern Germany, Austria-Hungary and eastward
through Asia Minor and Caucasia to and within the borders of Turkestan.
Wherever it grows spontaneously in the Old World it is said to prefer
rocky, gravelly, sunny slopes and the climate in which the grape thrives
best. Wild or cultivated, the Mahaleb is a shallow-rooted plant, a fact
that must be taken into consideration in its use as a stock. _Prunus
mahaleb_ is a common escape from cultivation in eastern North America
especially about the nursery centers of central New York.
The Mahaleb, or St. Lucie cherry, is of no importance to fruit-growers
for its fruit but as a consort with nearly all of the Sweet and Sour
Cherries now being propagated in North America it becomes of prime
importance and so receives botanical consideration here. According to
Schneider, in the reference cited, there are several spontaneous forms
of _Prunus mahaleb_ and also several horticultural varieties grown as
ornamentals. None of these, wild or cultivated, are of interest to
fruit-growers, unless, perchance some one of them should prove to be a
better stock upon which to work orchard cherries. Mahaleb stocks are
usually grown as seedlings but may also be propagated from root
cuttings.
The wood of the Mahaleb tree is of value in cabinet making, possessing
among other good qualities a pleasant and lasting odor. The leaves, too,
are odoriferous and are more or less used in France in the manufacture
of perfumes and in cookery to give savor to sauces.
PRUNUS TOMENTOSA Thunberg.
1. Thunberg _Fl. Jap._ 203. 1784. 2. _Jack Garden & Forest_
=5=:580, fig. 99. 1892. 3. Bailey _Cyc. Am. Hort._ =3=:1451. 1901.
4. Schneider _Handb. Laubh._ =1=:601. 1906. 5. Koehne _Plantae
Wilsonianae_ Pt. =2=:268. 1912.
_Cerasus tomentosa._ 6. Wallich _Cat._ No. 715. 1829.
[Illustration: _PRUNUS TOMENTOSA_]
A dwarfish, bush-like plant attaining a height of ten or twelve
feet, vigorous, dense-topped, hardy; trunk and branches stocky;
branches smooth, grayish-brown; branchlets many, of medium
thickness and length, thickly overspread with short pubescence,
with short internodes, roughish, with a few large, raised
lenticels near the base.
Leaves numerous, two and one-eighth inches long, one and one-half
inches wide, folded upward or flattened, broad-oval to obovate,
velvety; upper surface dull, dark green, rugose; lower surface
thickly pubescent, with a prominent midrib and veins; apex
abruptly pointed; margin serrate; petiole three-sixteenths inch in
length, reddish, pubescent, of medium thickness, with from twelve
to fourteen small, globose, yellow glands, usually at the base of
the blade.
Buds very small, short, pointed, free, arranged as lateral buds
and in clusters on small, short spurs; leaf-scars not prominent;
season of bloom early; flowers appear with the leaves, white,
thirteen-sixteenths inch across; borne singly or in pairs;
pedicels short, thick, glabrous; calyx-tube reddish, campanulate,
glabrous; calyx-lobes narrow, acute, serrate, slightly pubescent,
erect; petals white, roundish-ovate, entire, with short claws;
anthers tinged with red; pistil pubescent at the base, longer than
the stamens, often defective.
Fruit matures in mid-season; a half-inch in diameter, roundish,
slightly compressed; cavity deep, narrow, abrupt; suture shallow;
apex depressed, with adherent stigma; color currant-red; dots
numerous, small, grayish, obscure; stem thickish, one-eighth to
one-quarter of an inch in length, pubescent; skin thick, tender,
adheres slightly to the pulp, covered with light pubescence; flesh
light red, with light red juice, stringy, melting, sprightly,
sour; good in quality; stone clinging, one-quarter of an inch
long, one-eighth inch wide, oval, slightly pointed, with smooth
surfaces.
The habitat of _Prunus tomentosa_ is probably Central Asia though it is
now to be found growing spontaneously in East Tibet and the Chinese
provinces of Setschuan, Hupe, Kansu and perhaps Tochlii.
This shrub-like cherry is very generally cultivated in central, eastern
and northern China and in Japan for its fruit and as an ornamental. It
has been introduced into cultivation in many widely separated places in
North America and appears to be promising for cold regions, both bud and
wood withstanding perfectly the most rigorous climates of the United
States. As it grows in America it is a bush and never a true tree. It is
a twiggy, close-jointed plant, usually with many stems springing from
the ground and these bearing branches quite to the base. Frequently
these low-growing branches bend to the ground and take root forming new
plants. The bushes are thickly clothed with leaves densely tomentose on
the underside, in this respect and in shape, as well, very unlike the
foliage of common cultivated cherries. The flowers appear in great
abundance with the leaves, making a handsome ornamental; they are white,
becoming rose-colored as they fall away. The fruit ripens in mid-season
for cherries, setting profusely from the many blossoms. The cherries are
a half-inch in diameter, bright currant-red, covered with inconspicuous
hairs and contain a stone of medium size. They are pleasantly acid, very
juicy and withal a decided addition to cultivated cherries. _Prunus
tomentosa_ seems a most promising plant for domestication and of
particular merit for small gardens and cold regions.
Koehne, in his list of cherries, names ten botanical varieties of
_Prunus tomentosa_. From this the species seems to be most variable and
under cultivation would probably break up into many forms some of which
might prove superior to the type species. Koehne's botanical varieties
are given under the species on page 22.
PRUNUS PUMILA Linnaeus.
1. Linnaeus _Mant. Pl._ 75. 1768. 2. Bailey _Cor. Bul. Ex. Sta_.
=38=:96. 1892. Bailey _l. c_. =70=:260. 1894. 3. Bailey _Cyc. Am.
Hort._ =3=:1450. 1901.
_P. Susquehanae._ 4. Willdenow _Enum. Pl._ 519. 1809.
_P. depressa._ 5. Pursh _Fl. Am._ =1=:332. 1814.
_P. incana._ 6. Schweinitz Long's Expedition by Keating =2=:387.
1824.
_Cerasus glauca._ 7. Moench _Meth._ 672. 1794.
_C. pumila._ 8. Michaux _Fl. Bor. Am._ =2=:286. 1803.
_C. depressa._ 9. Seringe, in De Candolle _Prod._ =2=:538. 1825.
Plant a small shrub, five to eight feet in height, willow-like
habit, weak, upright when young but becoming decumbent,
slow-growing, hardy; trunk slender, smooth except for the raised
lenticels; branches slender, smooth, twiggy, very dark, dull
reddish-black with a tinge of gray; lenticels numerous, small,
conspicuous; branchlets very slender, short, twiggy, with short
internodes, dull grayish-brown, glabrous, with conspicuous, very
small, raised lenticels.
Leaves hanging late in the season, small, averaging one and
three-fourths inches long, one inch wide, flat, abruptly pointed,
narrowly oblanceolate to obovate, thin; upper surface dark, dull
green, smooth; lower surface light green, thinly pubescent on
the midrib and veins; midrib small, straight; veins very minute;
margin serrate, teeth tipped with very small glands; petiole
short, one-fourth inch in length, glandless.
Flowers small, in two- to five-flowered umbels, white, appearing
with the leaves; pedicels slender, a half-inch in length.
Fruit nearly round, pendulous, variable in color but usually
purple-black, without bloom, nearly a half-inch in diameter; flesh
thin, variable in quality but often sour and astringent; season
late July; stone turgid, nearly round.
_Prunus pumila_, the Sand Cherry, or Dwarf Cherry, of eastern America,
is found on sandy and rocky inland shores from Maine to the District of
Columbia and northwestward to the Lake of the Woods in Canada. In
particular it is common on the sand dunes of the Great Lakes. Everywhere
in the wild state it grows in light sands suggesting its use in arid
soils and especially on poor soils in cold climates.
As yet there seem to be no named varieties of this cherry known to
fruit-growers, its nearly related species, _Prunus besseyi_, offering
greater opportunities to both the fruit-grower and the experimenter.
Both the plants and fruits are so variable, the size, color and quality
of the crop on some plants being quite attractive, that it is certain an
opportunity to domesticate a worthy native plant is being overlooked.
The species ought to have value, too, as a stock on which to work other
cherries for sandy soils, dwarf trees and exacting climates.
PRUNUS CUNEATA Rafinesque.
1. Rafinesque _Ann. Nat._ 11. 1820. 2. Bailey _Cor. Ex. Sta. Bul._
=38=:101. 1892. 3. Britton and Brown _Ill. Flora_ =2=:250. 1897.
4. Gray _Man. Bot._ ed. =7=:498. 1908.
_P. pumila cuneata._ 5. Bailey _Cyc. Am. Hort._ =3=:1451. 1901.
_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.
1. Bailey _Cor. Ex. Sta. Bul._ =70=:261. 1894. 2. _Contrib. U. S.
Nat. Herb._ =3=:156. 1895. 3. Bessey _Neb. Hort. Soc._ =26=:168.
1895. Bessey _l. c._ =37=:121. 1906. 4. Britton and Brown _Ill.
Flora_ =3=:251. 1897.
_P. pumila Besseyi._ 5. Waugh _Vt. Ex. Sta. Rpt._ =12=:239.
1898-99. 6. Bailey _Cyc. Am. Hort._ 3:1451. 1901.
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.
Although _Prunus besseyi_ has received attention from horticulturists
less than a quarter-century it has aroused much interest, best
indicated by the fact that now a considerable number of varieties of
the species are under cultivation and there are more than a score of
hybrids disseminated in which it is one of the parents. Indians,
trappers and early settlers have long used the wild fruit under the name
of Western Sand Cherry, Bessey's Cherry and Rocky Mountain Cherry. Among
pioneers this cherry was held in high esteem for sauces, pies and
preserves and, where there was a dearth of cultivated cherries, was
eaten with relish out of hand. The flesh is tender, juicy and, while
astringent as commonly found, plants bearing aromatic and very palatable
cherries are often found growing wild while some of the domesticated
plants bear very well-flavored fruits. All speak of the Sand Cherry as
wonderful in productiveness and as having remarkable capacity to
withstand the vicissitudes of the exacting climate in which it grows. A
valuable asset of _Prunus besseyi_ is its great variability. Fruit from
different plants varies in size, color and flavor suggesting that, under
cultivation, amelioration will proceed rapidly. The plants of this
species root freely from layers or root-cuttings and are therefore
easily propagated and multiplied.
But it is in its hybrids that this western cherry has proved most
valuable in horticulture. There are now hybrids under cultivation
between this species and the Sand plum (_Prunus augustifolia watsoni_),
the Hortulana plum (_Prunus hortulana_), the Simonii plum (_Prunus
simonii_), the Japanese plum (_Prunus triflora_), the American plum
(_Prunus americana_), the Cherry plum (_Prunus cerasifera_), the Sweet
Cherry (_Prunus avium_), the peach (_Prunus persica_), the apricots
_(Prunus armeniaca_ and _Prunus mume_), and the common plum _(Prunus
domestica_). It would almost seem that this species is the "go-between"
of the many and varied types of the genus Prunus. It is true that few of
these hybrids yet shine as orchard plants but, given time, it seems
certain that some will prove valuable in general horticulture and that
many will be grown in the special horticulture of the northern
Mississippi Valley and the adjoining plains to the west. Credit must be
given to Professor N. E. Hansen of the South Dakota Experiment Station
for most of our present knowledge of hybridism between this and other
species.[10]
In his work with this species Hansen has also found that _Prunus
besseyi_ makes a very good stock for peaches, apricots, Japanese and
native plums and that, while it does not so readily consort with the
true cherries, yet it can be used as a stock for them. On the other
hand larger fruits of the Sand Cherry can be grown when it is budded on
stocks of the Americana.
[10] See bulletins 87 (1904), 88 (1904), 108 (1908) and 130 (1911)
from the South Dakota Experiment Station, Brookings, S. D.
MINOR SPECIES
Besides these well-recognized species of cultivated cherries there are
several others that play a much less conspicuous part in horticulture.
_Prunus fruticosa_ Pallas, the Dwarf Cherry of Europe, is much
cultivated, more especially its botanical variety _pendula_, as an
ornamental and somewhat for its fruit. According to Wilson,[11] _Prunus
involucrata_ Koehne is grown for its fruit in the gardens of China; the
fruits, he says, are "small and lacking in flavour." The fruits of
_Prunus emarginata_ Walpers are eaten by the Indians on the Pacific
Coast and the early settlers used the species as a stock for orchard
cherries. _Prunus jacquemontii_ Hooker, the Dwarf Cherry of Afghanistan
and Tibet, is occasionally in culture for its fruit and as a park plant;
so also is another dwarf cherry from southwestern Asia, _Prunus incana_
Steven. _Prunus pseudocerasus_ Lindley, the Flowering Cherry of Japan,
is a well-known ornamental the world over and in Japan is used as a
stock for orchard cherries for which purpose, as we have suggested in
the discussion of stocks, it ought to be tried in America.
[11] Wilson, E. H. _A Naturalist in Western China_ =2=:27. 1913.
CHAPTER II
THE HISTORY OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES
THE ANCIENT USE OF CHERRIES
History casts no direct light upon the period when the cherry first came
under cultivation. Undoubtedly primitive men in all parts of the North
Temperate Zone enlivened their scanty fruit fare with wild cherries.
Cultivated cherries, we know, had their origin in the Old World. But
history tells us nothing of the period when Europe and Asia were
unbroken forests inhabitated by savages who eked out a precarious
subsistence by the pursuit of the chase and from meagre harvests of wild
grains, fruits and vegetables. On these continents agriculture and rude
civilization began in ages immemorial and cultivated plants diversified,
enriched and adorned the landscapes long before the first written
records. Our knowledge of how wild cherries have been remodeled into the
orchard and garden varieties of today--of what the methods and
processes of domestication have been--is, therefore, doubtful and
limited, for the mind and hand of man had been deeply impressed upon the
cherry long before the faint traditions which have been transmitted to
our day could possibly have arisen.
The history of the cherry, then, goes back to primitive man. Direct
proof of the ancient use of cherries is furnished by the finding of
cherry-pits of several species in the deposits of Swiss lake-dwellings,
in the mounds and cliff-caves of prehistoric inhabitants of America and
in the ancient rubbish-heaps of Scandinavian countries. There are but
few regions in which cultivated cherries are grown in which the
inhabitants in times of stress, or by choice in times of plenty, do not
now use as food wild cherries, some species of which grow in abundance
and under the most varied conditions, almost from the Arctic Circle to
within a few degrees of the Tropic of Cancer in a belt encircling the
globe. It is probable that all of the wild species which have furnished
fruit to the aborigines or to the modern inhabitants of a region have
been sparingly cultivated--at the very least if they possessed any
considerable food value they have been more or less widely distributed
by the hand of man. But, curiously enough, out of the score or more of
species of which the fruit is used as food as the plants grow wild, but
two may be said to be truly domesticated. These are the Sour, or Pie
Cherry, _Prunus cerasus_, and the Sweet Cherry, _Prunus avium_, with
the histories of which we are now to be concerned.
Pliny is generally accredited as the first historian of the cherry.
Nearly eighteen and a half centuries ago he gave an account of the
cherries of Rome with the statement that Lucullus, the Roman soldier and
gourmet, had brought them to Rome 65 years before Christ[12] from the
region of the Black Sea. This particular in the account proves to be a
good illustration of the adage that old errors strike root deeply.
Though disproved beyond all question of doubt time and time again by
botanists and historians, Pliny's inadvertence is still everywhere
current in text-books, pomologies and cyclopaedias--a mis-statement
started, repeated and perpetuated from medieval days when to be printed
in Pliny was sufficient proof. That Lucullus brought to Italy a cherry
and one which the Romans did not know there is no reason to doubt, but
other cherries there must have been, not only wild but cultivated, of
_Prunus cerasus_ at least and probably of _Prunus avium_, and in
comparative abundance long before Lucullus, returning from the war in
Pontus with Mithridates, brought to Rome a cherry. With this brief
mention of Pliny's inaccuracy, we pass to more substantial facts in the
history of the cherry.
The domestication of one or the other of the two generally cultivated
species of cherries followed step by step the changes from savagery to
civilization in the countries of Europe and of western Asia. For, as one
sorts the accumulated stores of botanical and historical evidence, it
becomes quickly apparent that both the Sweet and the Sour Cherry now
grow wild and long have done so in the region named and that, from the
time tillage of plants was first practiced in the Old World, this fruit
has been under cultivation, feeble, obscure, and interrupted by war and
chase though its cultivation may have been. Certainly the history of the
cherry is as old as that of agriculture in the southern European
countries and is interwritten with it.
In beginning the history of a cultivated plant the first step is to
ascertain where it grows spontaneously--where it may be found unplanted
and unattended by man. This is the task now before us for _Prunus
cerasus_ and _Prunus avium_, discussing them in the order named.
[12] See quotation on page 45.
THE ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES
_Prunus cerasus_, of which the Montmorency is the commonest
representative in America, is now to be found wild wherever Sour
Cherries are much grown, for it is a favorite food of many birds which
quickly scatter its seeds from centers of cultivation. Nearly all of the
botanies of temperate regions in which agriculture is carried on name
this cherry as an escape from cultivation into woods and hedgerows and
along roadsides. The Sour Cherry, then, is now to be found truly wild in
many parts of several continents. It is not so easy to say where the
habitat and what the condition before the species was cultivated. But
botany, archaeology, history and philology indicate that the original
habitat of the Sour Cherry is southeastern Europe and the nearby
countries in Asia.
After saying that this cherry has been found wild in the forests of Asia
Minor, the plains of Macedonia, on Mount Olympus and in neighboring
territories, De Candolle, however, limits its habitat to the region
"from the Caspian Sea to the environments of Constantinople."[13] But as
a wild plant this cherry must have spread over a far greater area. Even
the broadest boundaries of the habitat of _Prunus cerasus_ as set by De
Candolle show over-caution. Thus, the Marasca cherry, a botanical
variety of _Prunus cerasus_, is most certainly wild in the Province of
Dalmatia on the Adriatic Sea in Austria; so, too, it is certain that
this species is feral as far away from De Candolle's center of
distribution as northern Austria and southern Germany and has been so
for untold ages. It is safe to say that the original source of the Sour
Cherry was the territory lying between Switzerland and the Adriatic Sea
on the west and the Caspian Sea and probably somewhat farther north on
the east. That is, our savage forefathers must have found this cherry in
the region thus outlined, probably in a much more extended territory,
into which it was brought in more or less remote times by agencies other
than human from De Candolle's smaller area of origin.
It is easier to define the geographic range of the wild Sweet Cherry.
Botanists very generally agree that _Prunus avium_ as a wild plant
inhabits all of the mainland of Europe in which the cultivated varieties
of the species can be grown--that is, most of the continent south of
Sweden, and may be found wild well into southern Russia. The species is
reported sparingly wild in northern Africa and is a very common wild
plant in southern Asia as far east as northern India. It must not be
thought that the plant is everywhere abundant in the great area outlined
as its habitat. To the contrary, the Sweet Cherry is an uncommon wild
plant in Spain, Italy and other parts of southern Europe. All
authorities agree that the region of greatest communal intensity for
_Prunus avium_ is between the Caspian and Black Seas and south of these
bodies of water. It might suffice to say that from about these seas the
Sweet Cherry came--that here grew the trunk from which branches were
spread into other lands by birds and animals carrying the seeds from
place to place. The most important fact to be established, however, is
that this cherry has long grown spontaneously over a widely extended
territory and may, therefore, have been domesticated in several widely
separated regions.
[13] De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_ 207. 1885.
THE CHERRY IN GREECE; THE FIRST RECORD OF CULTURE AND THE NAME
Having established the habitats of the two cultivated cherries we may
next ask when and where their cultivation began. The domestication of
plants probably began in China--certainly Chinese agriculture long
antedates that of any other nation now in existence of which we have
records. Agriculture in China, historians roughly approximate, goes back
4,000 years. But while the Chinese have many other species of cherry, as
we have seen, some of which may be said to be partially domesticated,
_Prunus cerasus_ and _Prunus avium_ are not found wild in China and were
only in recent years introduced there as cultivated plants. Neither does
the cherry of our civilization seem to have been known in the second
great agricultural region of the world--Egypt and the extreme southwest
of Asia. At least there are no words for the cherry in the languages of
the peoples of that region and cherry pits have not been found with the
remains of other plants in the tombs and ruins of Egypt, Assyria and
Babylon. Nor does the cherry seem to have been cultivated in India until
comparatively recent times.
These very brief and general statements show that cherries were not
cultivated in the first agricultural civilizations and serve to fix the
time and the place of the domestication of the cherry a little more
definitely. Records of cherries as cultivated plants begin, so far as
the researches of botanical historians now show, with Greek civilization
though it is probable, for several reasons, that some cultivated
cherries came to Greece from Asia Minor.
Theophrastus, to whom Linnaeus gave the title "Father of Botany,"
writing about 300 years before the Christian era in his _History of
Plants_, is, according to botanical historians, the first of the Greek
writers to mention the cherry. His statement is as follows:--
"The cherry is a peculiar tree, of large size, some attaining the height
of twenty-four cubits, rather thick, so that they may measure two cubits
in circumference at the base. The leaf is like that of the mespilus,
rather firm and broader, the color of the foliage such that the tree may
be distinguished from others at a good distance. The bark, by its color,
smoothness and thickness, is like that of tilia. The flower [meaning,
the cluster of flowers] is white, resembling that of the pear and
mespilus, consisting of small [separate] flowers. The fruit is red,
similar to that of diospyros [but what his diospyros was no one knows]
of the size of a faba [perhaps nelumbo seed], which is hard, but the
cherry is soft. The tree grows in the same situations as tilia; by
streams."[14]
From this passage we gather that the cherry Theophrastus knew was the
Sweet Cherry, _Prunus avium_; the description shows it to be the same
large, tall tree now naturalized in open woods and along roadsides in
many parts of the United States. From the fact that Theophrastus
describes the tree and the bark in more detail than the fruit we may
assume that the cherry was more esteemed in ancient Greece as a
timber-tree than as a fruit-tree. Curiously enough the name the Greeks
at this time used for the Sweet Cherry is now applied to _Prunus
cerasus_, the Sour Cherry.
"Kerasos" was the Sweet Cherry in ancient Greece and from kerasos came
_cerasus_, used by many botanists as the name of the genus. That the
Sweet Cherry should by the use of _avium_ be denominated the "bird
cherry" is clear since birds show much discrimination between cherries,
but why the Sour Cherry should be given the specific name _cerasus_,
first applied to the Sweet Cherry, is not apparent.
Pages are written in the old pomologies and botanical histories as to
the origin of the word _cerasus_. Pliny's statement that Lucullus called
the cherry _cerasus_ from the town from which he obtained it, Kerasun in
Pontus, on the Black Sea, is, in the light of all who have since looked
into the matter, a misconception. To the contrary, commentators now
agree that the town received its name from the cherry which grows most
abundantly in the forests in that part of Asia Minor. The name,
according to all authorities, is very ancient--a linguistic proof of the
antiquity of the cherry.
To sum up, the cherry comes into literature first from Greece in the
writings of Theophrastus. There can be but little doubt, however, but
that it had been cultivated for centuries before Theophrastus wrote.
Whether one or both of the two cherries were domesticated by the Greeks,
beginning with their civilization, or whether cultivated cherries came
to Greece from Asia Minor, is not now known. It is very probable that
some of the several varieties grown in Greece came under cultivation
through domestication of wild plants; others were introduced from
regions farther east.
[14] Theophrastus, Book III, Chap. 13.
THE SWEET CHERRY POSSIBLY THE PARENT OF THE SOUR CHERRY
A digression may be permitted here to state a hypothesis suggested by De
Candolle[15] which should interest both fruit-growers and
plant-breeders. De Candolle, while considering the two species of
cultivated cherries to be now quite distinct, suggests that, since they
differ essentially but little in their characters and since their
original habitats were in the same region, it is probable that one
species came from the other. He surmises, since _Prunus avium_ is the
commoner in the original home, is generally the more vigorous of the
two, has spread much farther and probably at a much earlier date from
the primal habitation in Asia Minor than _Prunus cerasus_, that the
latter, the Sour Cherry, is derived from the Sweet Cherry. In the future
breeding of cherries confirmatory evidence of such a relationship may be
obtained though, should none be found, the negation should go for naught
and the supposition can only remain an interesting and plausible
hypothesis.
[15] De Candolle, Alphonse _Origin of Cultivated Plants_ 210. 1885.
THE CHERRY IN ITALY
Pliny attempts to give the first full account of cultivated cherries
and, even though among his statements are several inaccuracies, yet he
may be said to have made a very good beginning of a flora of cultivated
cherries for he names and describes ten varieties. The fact that there
were as many as ten cherries in Italy at the time Pliny wrote, less than
a century after the return of Lucullus from Pontus, is strong evidence
that the cherry in Italy antedates Lucullus. Besides, it is hardly
probable that Pliny knew and described all of the cherries to be found
in the whole of his country. But even if these ten comprise the entire
number, those who know how extremely difficult it is to introduce new
plants in a country with the facilities we have in our day, will doubt
that all of the cherries in Pliny's account could have been introduced
in Italy 1900 years ago and have come under general cultivation, as
according to Pliny they had, within the short space of a century. The
following quotation, then, must be taken as an account of the cherries
grown in Italy in the first century after Christ with little weight
given to the historical evidence presented.[16]
"The cherry did not exist in Italy before the period of the victory
gained over Mithridates by L. Lucullus, in the year of the City 680. He
was the first to introduce this tree from Pontus, and now, in the course
of one hundred and twenty years, it has travelled beyond the Ocean, and
arrived in Britannia even. The cherry, as we have already stated, in
spite of every care, has been found impossible to rear in Egypt. Of this
fruit, that known as the "Apronian" is the reddest variety, the Lutatian
being the blackest, and the Caecilian perfectly round. The Junian cherry
has an agreeable flavour, but only, so to say, when eaten beneath the
tree, as they are so remarkably delicate that they will not bear
carrying. The highest rank, however, has been awarded to the Duracinus
variety, known in Campania as the "Plinian" cherry, and in Belgica to
the Lusitanian cherry, as also to one that grows on the banks of the
Rhenus. This last kind has a third colour, being a mixture of black,
red, and green, and has always the appearance of being just on the turn
to ripening. It is less than five years since the kind known as the
"laurel-cherry" was introduced, of a bitter but not unpleasant flavour,
the produce of a graft upon the laurel. The Macedonian cherry grows on a
tree that is very small, and rarely exceeds three cubits in height;
while the chamaecerasus is still smaller, being but a mere shrub. The
cherry is one of the first trees to recompense the cultivator with its
yearly growth; it loves cold localities and a site exposed to the north.
The fruits are sometimes dried in the sun, and preserved, like olives,
in casks."
How are the cherries described in the passage from Pliny related to
those of modern culture? A score or more of commentators have tried to
tell but when the comments are compared Pliny's disorder becomes
confusion worse confounded. Here, as in his historical statements, Pliny
seems to have prepared the ground for a fine crop of misunderstandings.
The speculations as to what particular cherry each of the descriptions
fits quickly show the futility of specification. A few generalizations
only are warranted.
Thus, if we assume, as most commentators do, that Apronian, the first
of Pliny's varieties, was named after Apronius, a Roman praetor of
Pliny's day, there is nothing to indicate the character of the cherry
except the word "reddest" which means but little for it is no more
possible to distinguish cherries by redness than by its blackness to
tell a pot from a kettle.
It is as impossible to distinguish the second variety as the first. The
name given is Lutatian, the variety having been dedicated, as all
commentators agree, to Lutatius Catulus, a contemporary of Lucullus,
revered by Romans for having rebuilt the capitol after it had been
destroyed by fire. It is described as "being the blackest" but whether
_Prunus avium_ or _Prunus cerasus_, sweet or sour, who can tell?
The third variety is called the Caecilian cherry, which we are told is
"perfectly round"--a character possessed in like degree by many
cherries. The name, on the authority of Latin scholars, commemorates the
Caecilius family, rich and powerful Romans, friends of Lucullus at the
time he was promoting cherry culture.
We may be a little more certain of the identity of the fourth cherry,
called the Junian, and said to have been possessed of "an agreeable
flavor but only, so to say, when eaten beneath the tree, as they are so
remarkably delicate that they will not bear carrying." Whether the name
was given in honor of the Roman Republican, Junius Brutus, who died 42
A. D. or from Junius, the month of their ripening, cannot be said. The
description, as practically all agree, fits very well the French Guigne
or English Gean group of cherries. It is probable that "Guigne" is a
perversion of "Junian."
There can be little question as to the cherry Pliny next describes, "the
Duracinus variety" which he says has been awarded "highest rank" and to
which he paid the compliment of giving it his own name, for he tells us
that it is "known in Campania as the Plinian cherry." This hard-fleshed
cherry of delectable quality can be no other than a Bigarreau--some
protean Napoleon, Yellow Spanish, Windsor or the older Oxheart and
Elkhorn.
The sixth cherry is the Lusitanian, which, if the translations read
aright, the Belgians rank highest. Ancient Lusitania is modern Portugal
and the Lusitanian cherry may be the Griotte of Portugal grown from time
immemorial in that country. The identity of the variety is not so
important in this passage as is the connection that Pliny establishes in
cherry culture at this early time between Portugal, Italy and Belgium.
By such tokens does our author cast doubt upon his statement that
Lucullus had but yesterday, as it were, brought the cherry from Pontus.
The seventh cherry is one "that grows on the banks of the Rhenus"
(Rhine), further described as "being a mixture of black, red and green,"
and of having "always the appearance of being just on the turn to
ripening." It is useless to add another guess to those of the many
commentators as to what this tri-colored cherry from the banks of the
Rhine may be.
The eighth description, that of the "laurel-cherry," applies to a graft
and not to a variety. Of it, Pliny says, "It is less than five years
since the kind known as the laurel-cherry was introduced, of a bitter,
but not unpleasant flavor, the produce of a graft upon the laurel." It
is barely possible that a cherry could be made to grow on a laurel five
years but it is extremely doubtful, as all modern horticulturists who
have tried it say, and it is impossible to have such a graft bear fruit.
Pliny was misinformed.
The ninth and tenth of Pliny's cherries, the Macedonian and the
Chamaecerasus, are probably one and the same, since but one cherry that
could possibly answer to the descriptions given could have been in Italy
at the time Pliny wrote. The cherry described, then, was almost beyond
doubt _Prunus fruticosa_ Pallas, a synonym of which is _Prunus
chamaecerasus_ Jacquin, perpetuating the name used by Pliny. This is the
European Dwarf Cherry, or Ground Cherry, which is now and was probably
then a wild plant in parts of Italy and which is very well described by
"a tree that is very small, and rarely exceeds three cubits in height."
We have accredited Pliny with having first described cherries in Italy
and discredited his account of their introduction in his own country,
but chiefly on inferential evidence. Just a few words of direct proof
that the cherry was long in cultivation by the Romans before Lucullus
and we have done with the introduction of the cherry into Italy and have
filled another gap between Theophrastus and our own times. Marcus
Terentius Varro (B. C. 117-27), one of the illustrious scholars of
ancient Rome, sometimes called the father of Roman learning, in his
eightieth year, as he tells us in his first chapter, wrote a book on
farming--one, which, by the way, may be read with profit by modern
farmers.[17] In book 1, chapter XXXIX, he tells when to graft cherries,
discussing the process not as if it or the cherry were new or little
known but as if the cherry were as commonplace as the other
agricultural crops of the times. Varro effectually disproves Pliny to
whose mis-statement we have given so much space only because for nearly
2000 years it has been generally accepted as the truth.
The gaps in the history of the cherry are long. Athenaeus,[18]
Tertullian,[19] Ammianus,[20] and St. Jerome,[21] Roman writers of the
Third and Fourth Centuries, mention cherries but chiefly to repeat and
perpetuate Pliny's errors. It was not until the Sixteenth Century--a
lapse of 1400 years--that an attempt was again made to describe in full
cultivated cherries. Sometime in this century, Matthiolus (1487-1577), a
Tuscan and one of the eminent naturalists not only of Italy but of the
world in the Middle Ages, in translating and annotating the medical
works of the Greek writer Dioscorides, made a list of the fruit-trees
then grown in Italy. As the second descriptive list of cherries this
contribution of Matthiolus might be worth reprinting were it not, as in
Pliny, that but few of his varieties can be certainly made out. He does,
however, make a number of additions to Pliny's list but space does not
permit a consideration of these; especially since Gerarde, writing less
than a century later in English, so well amplifies Matthiolus that we
shall print his account.
[16] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =3=:322. 1855.
[17] A very good translation of Varro on farming is one by Lloyd
Starr-Best, published by G. Bell & Sons, London. 1912.
[18] Athenaeus _Dipnosophistæ_ Book II, Chap. XXXIV-V.
[19] Tertullian _Apologeticum_ Chap. XI.
[20] Ammianus _History of the Roman Emperors_ Book 22, Chap. XVI.
[21] St. Jerome _Epistulae_ Book I, Letter XXXV.
CHERRIES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Pliny mentions the cherry as growing in several countries and, by
reading between lines, we may assume that cultivated cherries were
distributed throughout all parts of Europe where agriculture was
practiced, by Christ's time or shortly thereafter. Pliny speaks of the
cherry in some connection with England, Germany, Belgium and Portugal.
Surely we may assume that the cherry was being grown at the same time in
at least the countries in Europe which are between or border on those
named. But from Pliny to the Sixteenth Century the current of progress
in cherry culture was immeasurably slow. In the intervening 1600 years
not a score of new cherries were brought under cultivation. Attention
was probably given during these dark ages to this and to all fruits as
species and as divisions of species which came nearly or quite true to
seed. It was only in the refinements of horticulture and botany brought
about by the herbalists that true horticultural varieties came into
common cultivation.
Thus, the first of the German herbals, the _Herbarius_, printed at Mainz
in 1491, does not describe or even name varieties of cherries but groups
them in the two species as Sweets and Sours, the statement running:[22]
"The cherries are some sweet, some sour, like the wild apple; the sours
bring to the stomach gas and make the mouth fresh (frisch), those too
sweet or too sour are of little use." A wood-cut in this old herbal
illustrates a Sour Cherry.
According to Müller,[23] not until 1569 did the Germans attempt to give
names to varieties, when, in a medical herbal, the _Gart der
Gesundheit_, cherries were roughly divided into four groups: (1) The
Amarellen, sour, dark red cherries with long stems. (2) The
Weichselkirschen, red cherries with white juice and short stems. (3) The
Süsskirschen, red or black Sweet Cherries with long stems. (4) "Beside
these yet more" distinguished by their shape and the province in which
they are grown. Not until well into the Eighteenth Century do the
Germans seem to have given names to more than a few of the most distinct
varieties of cherries. Yet the cherry was more largely cultivated in
Germany, one, two, or three centuries ago, as it is now, than in any
other European country. This, one readily gleans from what has been
written on cherries in different countries and from the acknowledgments
of foreign pomologists to those of Germany for most of what has been
printed regarding cherries. Not only has the cherry been a favorite
orchard plant in Germany but since the Sixteenth Century it has been
largely planted along the public roads.
Of cherries on the continent, for this brief history, nothing more need
be said. Most of the varieties that have been imported from Europe to
America have come from England and we must, therefore, devote rather
more attention to the history of the cherry in England than in other
European countries.
[22] Quoted from Müller, Hugo M. _Obstzüchter_ =8=:3. 1910.
[23] _Ibid._
CHERRIES IN ENGLAND
Cultivated cherries came to England with the Romans. _Prunus avium_ is
indigenous in Great Britain but probably no care worthy the name
cultivation was given these wild trees by the ancient Britons. Pliny
states that the cherry was carried from Rome to Britain before the
middle of the First Century--meaning probably some improved variety. In
no part of the world does the cherry take more kindly to the soil than
in England and no doubt this fruit became firmly established in Kent,
where the Romans settled, before the downfall of the southern invaders.
With the expulsion of the Romans and the subsequent influx of
barbarians, agriculture, especially gardening and fruit-growing, became
almost a lost art but still it is not probable that the cherry was
wholly lost to cultivation during the Teutonic invasions of Britain.
Fruit-growing could not have greatly prospered, however, in the
centuries of strife with the barbarians which succeeded Roman rule in
England; and a revival of cherry culture did not take place until the
reintroduction of Christianity and the establishment of monasteries
where, undisturbed by wars, the monks became notable horticulturists.
They not only had opportunity in the comparative peace in which their
lives were cast to grow fruit but many of them were men of superior
intelligence and skill and from intercourse with the continental
countries learned what plants were worth growing and how to grow
them--the monasteries were the experiment stations of the times.
Undoubtedly the monks in bringing to England treasures from the
continent did not forget fruits and among them cherries.
Passing by a considerable number of references which could be cited to
show that cherries of one kind and another were cultivated in Britain
from at least as early a date as the Ninth Century, we come to the
discussion of this fruit by the herbalists of the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries. Of the three great English herbalists, Turner
published his work in 1538; Gerarde's, printed in 1596, was revised and
greatly improved by Johnson in 1633; Parkinson's _Paradisi in Sole
Paradisus Terrestris_, or Park-in-Suns Earthly Paradise--the author
evidently a punster--was published in 1629. All of these contain as full
botanical and pomological discussions of cherries as knowledge then
permitted.
It must not be thought, by those unacquainted with the plant-lore of the
times, that the cherry received consideration only from the pens of
Turner, Gerarde, and Parkinson. During the time covered by the lives of
these three men a score or more of books were written in English on
botany and pomology in which accounts were given of the cherry, all
showing the esteem in which this fruit was held in England during and
before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Space permits comments on the
account of the cherry given by but one of these Elizabethan herbalists,
and of the several Gerarde's seems best suited to our purpose.
We have chosen Gerarde because he treats the cherry more fully than do
the other writers of the period and because he was a compiler and a
translator, having, as he quaintly says, "perused divers Herbals set
fourth in other languages;" thus from Gerarde we obtain a conception of
cherries growing on the continent as well as those growing in England.
Students of the English herbals say that Gerarde translated, copied and
adapted from Matthiolus, whose book we have noted, but more particularly
from Dodoens who in 1554 published in Antwerp _A History of Plants_.
These two worthies, in turn, had borrowed very freely from still more
ancient writers--Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Columella and others. As
might be suspected, errors centuries old were passed down, yet each new
translation or compilation contains much added information and is far
freer from error. In particular, Gerarde seems to have been a wise
compiler and adapter and to have combined a large measure of first-hand
practical knowledge with his borrowings from others. This is especially
true of what he writes concerning cherries, a fruit with which he seems
to have been very familiar.
The following is Gerarde's account, with interpolations by the author:
"The ancient Herbalists have set down four kinds of Cherry trees;
the first is great and wild, the second tame or of the garden, the
third hath sour fruit, the fourth is that which is called in Latin
Chamaecerasus, or the dwarfe Cherry tree. The later writers have
found divers sorts more, some bringing forth great fruit, others
lesser; some with white fruit, some with blacke, others of the
colour of black bloud, varying infinitely according to the clymat
and country where they grow."
The four cherries which Gerarde says the "ancient herbalists have set
down" are, it is easy to see: first, the wild _Prunus avium_; second,
cultivated sweet varieties of _Prunus avium_; third, the sour _Prunus
cerasus_; fourth, the Dwarf Cherry, _Prunus fruticosa_.
"The English Cherry tree groweth to a high and great tree, the
body whereof is of a mean bignesse, which is parted above into
very many boughes, with a barke somewhat smooth, of a brown
crimson colour, tough and pliable; the substance or timber is
also brown in the middle, and the outer part is somewhat white:
the leaves be great, broad, long, set with veins or nerves, and
sleightly nicked about the edges: the floures are white, of a mean
bigness, consisting of five leaves, and having certain threds in
the middle of the like colour. The Cherries be round, hanging
upon long stems or footstalks, with a stone in the middest which
is covered with a pulp or soft meat; the kernell thereof is not
unpleasant to the taste, though somewhat bitter."
This is _Prunus avium_, which is very generally wild in Britain--the
Gean of the English.
"The Flanders Cherry tree differeth not from our English Cherry
tree in Stature or form of leaves or floures, the only difference
is, that this tree brings forth his fruit sooner and greater than
the other, wherefore it may be called in Latine, _Cerasus praecox,
sive Belgica_."
A cherry which "brings forth his fruit sooner and greater than the
other" can be no other than one of the early varieties of the Sweet
Cherry.
"The Spanish Cherry tree groweth up to the height of our common
Cherry tree, the wood or timber is soft and loose, covered with a
whitish scaly barke, the branches are knotty, greater and fuller
of substance than any other Cherry tree; the leaves are likewise
greater and longer than any of the rest, in shape like those of
the Chestnut tree: the floures are like the others in form, but
whiter of colour; the fruit is greater and longer than any, white
for the most part all over, except those that stand in the hottest
place where the sun hath some reflexion against a wall: they are
also white within, and of a pleasant taste."
We have in this description a very good pen picture of Yellow Spanish,
one of the Bigarreaus, of which there must have been several in common
cultivation in Gerarde's time.
"The Gascoin Cherry tree groweth very like to the Spanish Cherry
tree in stature, flours and leaves: it differeth in that it
bringeth forth very great Cherries, long, sharp pointed, with a
certain hollownesse upon one side, and spotted here and there with
certain prickles of purple color as smal as sand. The taste is
most pleasant, and excelleth in beauty."
Gascoin, sometimes "Gaskin" in England, is a corruption of Gascoigne, a
name applied by the French to cherries produced in Gascony and said to
have been brought to England by Joan of Kent when her husband, the Black
Prince, was commanding in Guienne and Gascony. The variety is a very
good Sweet Cherry, no doubt the one described in this text under the
name Bleeding Heart.
"The late ripe Cherry tree groweth up like unto our wild English
Cherry tree, with the like leaves, branches and floures, saving
that they are sometimes once doubled; the fruit is small,
round, and of a darke bloudy colour when they be ripe, which
the Frenchmen gather with their stalkes, and hang them up in
their houses in bunches or handfulls against Winter, which the
Physitions do give unto their patients in hot and burning fevers,
being first steeped in a little warme water, that causeth them to
swell and plumpe as full and fresh as when they did grow upon the
tree.
"The Cluster Cherry tree differeth not from the last described
either in leaves, branches, or stature: the floures are also like,
but never commeth any one of them to be double. The fruit is
round, red when they be ripe, and many growing upon one stem or
foot-stalke in clusters, like as the Grapes do. The taste is not
unpleasant although somewhat soure."
These two cherries, one sees at once, are varieties of _Prunus cerasus_.
The first, Gerarde identifies for us on a succeeding page as the
Morello. He says of it: "The late ripe cherries which the Frenchmen
keepe dried against the winter, and are by them called Morelle, and wee
after the same name call them Morell Cherries.
"This Cherrie-tree with double floures growes up unto a small
tree, not unlike to the common Cherrie-tree in each respect,
saving that the floures are somewhat double, that is to say, three
or foure times double; after which commeth fruit (though in small
quantitie) like the other common Cherry.
"The double floured Cherry-tree growes up like unto an hedge bush,
but not so great nor high as any of the others, the leaves and
branches differ not from the rest of the Cherry-tree. The floures
hereof are exceeding double, as are the flours of Marigolds,
but of a white colour, and smelling somewhat like the Hawthorne
floures; after which come seldome or never any fruit, although
some Authors have said that it beareth sometimes fruit, which my
selfe have not at any time seen; notwithstanding the tree hath
growne in my Garden many yeeres, and that in an excellent good
place by a bricke wall, where it hath the reflection of the South
Sunne, fit for a tree that is not willing to beare fruit in our
cold climat."
These two are double-flowered cherries, several of which seem to have
been grown as ornamentals. Both belong to _Prunus cerasus_ and as we
gather rather better elsewhere than here, both are of the Amarelle type
of tree.
"The Birds Cherry-tree, or the blacke Cherry-tree, that bringeth
forth very much fruit upon one branch (which better may be
understood by sight of the figure, than by words) springeth up
like an Hedge tree of small stature, it groweth in the wilde woods
of Kent, and are there used for stockes to graft other Cherries
upon, of better tast, and more profit, as especially those called
the Flanders Cherries: this wilde tree growes very plentifully
in the North of England, especially at a place called Heggdale,
neere unto Rosgill in Westmerland, and in divers other places
about Crosbie Ravenswaith, and there called Hegberrie-tree: it
groweth likewise in Martome Parke, foure miles from Blackeburne,
and in Harward neere thereunto; in Lancashire almost in every
hedge; the leaves and branches differ not from those of the
wilde Cherry-tree: the floures grow alongst the small branches,
consisting of five small white leaves, with some greenish and
yellow thrums in the middle: after which come the fruit, greene at
the first, blacke when they be ripe, and of the bignesse of Sloes;
of an harsh and unpleasant taste.
"The other birds Cherry-tree differeth not from the former in any
respect, but in the colour of the berries; for as they are blacke;
so on the contrary, these are red when they be ripe, wherein they
differ."
The cherries described in these two paragraphs, one black and one red,
"that bringeth forth very much fruit upon one branch" and "groweth in
the wilde woods" and "of an harsh and unpleasant taste" are of course
the _Prunus padus_ of Britain and most of Europe--not a true cherry but
the racemose Bird Cherry, or Choke Cherry.
"The common blacke Cherry-tree growes up in some places to
great stature: there is no difference between it and our common
Cherry-tree, saving that the fruit hereof is very little in
respect of other Cherries, and of a blacke colour."
This must be some wild Gean or Mazzard.
"The dwarfe Cherry-tree groweth very seldome to the height of
three cubits: the trunke or body small, covered with a darke
coloured blacke: whereupon do grow very limber and pliant twiggie
branches: the leaves are very small, not much unlike to those of
the Privite bush: the floures are small and white: after which
come Cherries of a deepe red colour when they be ripe, of taste
somewhat sharpe, but not greatly unpleasant: the branches laid
downe in the earth, quickely take root, whereby it is greatly
increased."
Here we have _Prunus fruticosa_ very well described.
"My selfe with divers others have sundry other sorts in our
gardens, one called the Hart Cherry, the greater and the lesser;
one of the great bignesse, and most pleasant in taste, which we
call _Luke Wardes_ Cherry, because he was the first that brought
the same out of Italy; another we have called the Naples Cherry,
because it was first brought into these parts from Naples: the
fruit is very great, sharpe pointed, somewhat like a man's heart
in shape, of a pleasant taste, and of a deepe blackish colour when
it is ripe, as it were of the colour of dried bloud."
Gerarde's Hart is probably one of the Heart cherries, while "Luke Wardes
Cherry" is one of the oldest named Sweet Cherries known in England,
having been mentioned by Parkinson and other of the herbalists as well
as in this list.
"We have another that bringeth forth Cherries also very great,
bigger than any Flanders Cherrie, of the colour of Jet, or
burnished horn, and of a most pleasant taste, as witnesseth
Mr. Bull, the Queenes Majesties Clockmaker, who did taste of the
fruit (the tree bearing onely one cherry, which he did eat; but my
selfe never tasted of it) at the impression hereof. We have also
another, called the Agriot Cherry, of a reasonable good taste.
Another we have with fruit of a dun colour, tending to a watchet.
We have one of the Dwarfe Cherries, that bringeth forth fruit as
great as most of our Flanders Cherries, whereas the common sort
hath very small Cherries, and those of an harsh taste. These and
many sorts more we have in our London gardens, whereof to write
particularly would greatly enlarge our volume, and to small
purpose: therefore, what hath beene said shall suffice. I must
here (as I have formerly done, in Peares, Apples, and other such
fruites) refer you to my two friends, Mr. _John Parkinson_, and
Mr. _John Millen_, the one to furnish you with the history, and
the other with the things themselves, if you desire them."
One can only roughly surmise as to what the cherries mentioned in this
paragraph are with the exception of the Agriot which is, if the synonymy
of several European pomologists be correct, the Griotte Commune, a sort
supposed to have been brought from Syria by the crusaders and to have
been recorded under the last name in France as early as 1485.
The end of the Seventeenth Century saw a great revival of agriculture in
all of its branches on the continent; in England the revival began with
the fall of the commonwealth. From this time the progress of cherry
culture has been so rapid and so great that it would be an endless task
to give even a cursory view of it--a task unnecessary, too, for
succeeding the herbalists a great number of botanies, pomologies and
works on agriculture were published to many of which reference is still
easy. Moreover, the histories of varieties in this text carry us back
quite to the beginning of the Eighteenth Century.
There now remains for the history of the cherry but to sketch its
introduction and culture in North America, an undertaking that can be
done briefly and to the point, for the data are abundant, recent and
reliable. Here, too, accounts of the origin of varieties and the
development of the cherry may be looked for in the chapters which
comprise the main part of the book.
CHERRIES IN AMERICA
The cherry was one of the first fruits planted in the fields cleared and
enriched by our hardy American ancestry. From Canada to Florida the
colonists, though of several nationalities and those from one nation
often representing several quite distinct classes, were forced alike to
turn at once to the cultivation of the soil as a means of subsistence.
And while in all of the colonies the early settlers must have been
busily engaged in the cultivation of cereals for the staff of life, in
the South in growing cotton and tobacco for money and for purposes of
barter, in the North in harvesting forest and fish products for
bartering; yet the historians of the colonies notice so often and
describe so fully and with such warmth of feeling the vegetables,
flowers and fruits in the orchards and gardens of the New World that it
is certain that the ground was tilled not only as a means of subsistence
but because the tillers loved the luxuries of the land.
What fruit better adapted to the uses of colonists than the cherry? It
possesses in a high degree, especially the Sour Cherry, the power of
adaptation to new environment and thrives under a greater variety of
conditions than any other of our fruits unless it be the apple, which it
at least equals in this respect. The cherry is easily propagated; it
comes in bearing early and bears regularly; of all fruits it requires
least care--gives the greatest returns under neglect; and the product is
delectable and adapted to many purposes. We shall expect, then, in
examining the early records of fruit-growing in America to find the
cherry one of the first planted and one of the most widely disseminated
of fruits.
CHERRIES PLANTED BY THE FRENCH IN AMERICA
While written records are lacking, the plantations of old trees and the
development of cherry culture indicate that the French early planted
cherries in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and in the
early settlements on the St. Lawrence River. The cherry is a favorite
fruit of the French and the venerable trees that survived on the sites
of their settlements when the English came into possession of Canada are
proof sufficient that the émigrés from Provence or Normandy, fruit
districts of France from which many French settlers came, brought with
them seeds of the cherry with those of other fruits. Peter Kalm in his
_Travels into North America_ in 1771,[24] records the very general
culture of all the hardy fruits in Canada and leaves the impression that
such had been the case from the first settlements.
[24] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ 1771.
CHERRIES IN NEW ENGLAND
The cherry came to New England with the first settlers. This we are told
in all the records of early New England in which the conditions of the
country are described and of it we have confirmatory proof in many
enormous cherry trees, Sweet and Sour, both about ancient habitations
and as escapes from cultivation in woods, fields and fence rows, all
pointing to the early cultivation of this fruit. The early records are
very specific. Thus, to quote a few out of an embarrassment of
references: Francis Higginson writing in 1629, after naming the several
other fruits then under cultivation in Massachusetts, notes that the Red
Kentish is the only cherry cultivated.[25] In the same year, the 16th of
March, 1629, a memorandum of the Massachusetts Company shows that
"Stones of all sorts of fruites, as peaches, plums, filberts, cherries,
pear, aple, quince kernells" were to be sent to New England.[26]
These seeds, provided by the home company with forethought of the need
of orchards in the colony, evidently produced fruit trees sufficient to
supply both hunger and thirst; for John Josselyn, who made voyages to
New England in 1638, 1639 and 1663, writing of "New England's Rarities
Discovered," says:[27] "Our fruit Trees prosper abundantly, Apple-trees,
Pear-trees, Quince-trees, Cherry-trees, Plum-trees, Barberry-trees. I
have observed with admiration, that the Kernels sown or the Succors
planted produce as fair and good fruit, without grafting, as the tree
from whence they were taken: the Countrey is replenished with fair and
large Orchards. It was affirmed by one Mr. Woolcut (a magistrate in
Connecticut Colony) at the Captains Messe (of which I was) aboard the
Ship I came home in, that he made Five hundred Hogsheads of Syder out of
his own Orchard in one year. Syder is very plentiful in the Countrey,
ordinarily sold for ten shillings a Hogshead.
"The Quinces, Cherries, Damsons, set the Dames a work, Marmalad and
preserved Damsons are to be met with in every house. It was not long
before I left the Countrey that I made Cherry wine, and so may others,
for there are good store of them both red and black. Their fruit trees
are subject to two diseases, the Meazels, which is when they are burned
and scorched with the Sun, and lowsiness, when the woodpeckers jab holes
in their bark: the way to cure them when they are lowsie is to bore a
hole in the main root with an Augur, and pour in a quantity of Brandie
or Rhum, and then stop it up with a pin made of the same Tree."
As early as 1641, a nursery had been started in Massachusetts and was
selling among other trees those of the cherry. Troublesome pests had
made their appearance, too, as may be seen from the following letter,
probably from the first American nurseryman. The letter is written by
George Fenwith of Saybrook, Connecticut, under date of May 6, 1641,[28]
to Governor John Winthrop, Jr.
"I haue receaued the trees yow sent me, for which I hartily thanke
yow. If I had any thing heare that could pleasure yow, yow should
frely command it. I am prettie well storred with chirrie & peach
trees, & did hope I had had a good nurserie of aples, of the aples
yow sent me last yeare, but the wormes have in a manner distroyed
them all as they came vp. I pray informe me if yow know any way to
preuent the like mischiefe for the future."
These early plantations of cherries in New England were undoubtedly
grown from seed; for buds, cions and trees could not have been imported
unless the latter were brought over potted out as was not commonly done
until a century and a half later--at least, the records make mention of
seeds and not of trees as was the case just before and after the
Revolutionary War. A statement left by one of the Chief Justices of
Massachusetts, Paul Dudley, living at Roxbury, at as late a date as
1726, indicates that varieties were few. In a paper in the
_Philosophical Transactions_[29] on agricultural conditions in
Massachusetts, among many other interesting things, Justice Dudley says:
"Our apples are without doubt as good as those of England, and
much fairer to look to, and so are the pears, but we have not got
all the sorts. Our peaches do rather excel those of England, and
then we have not the trouble or expence of walls for them; for our
peach trees are all standards, and I have had in my own garden
seven or eight hundred fine peaches of the Rare-ripes, growing at
a time on one tree. Our people, of late years, have run so much
upon orchards, that in a village near Boston, consisting of about
forty families, they made near three thousand barrels of cyder.
This was in the year 1721. And in another town of two hundred
families, in the same year I am credibly informed they made near
ten thousand barrels. Our peach trees are large and fruitful, and
bear commonly in three years from the stone. Our common cherries
are not so good as the Kentish cherries of England, and we have no
Dukes or Heart cherries, unless in two or three gardens."
[25] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections_ 1st Ser. =I=:118.
[26] _Mass. Records_ =I=:24.
[27] _Mass. Hist. Collections_ 3d Ser. =23=:337.
[28] _Mass. Hist. Collections_ 4th Ser. =VI=:499.
[29] Abridgment =6=:pt. =II=:341, in _Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc._
14-15. 1829-1878.
CHERRIES IN NEW YORK
Though settled at about the same time and having a more congenial
climate, New York made progress in fruit-growing more slowly than
Massachusetts. The early Dutch settlers in New York were transient
traders and not home makers. Actual settlement with homes in view did
not begin until after the historical bargain in which thrifty Peter
Minuit had acquired Manhattan Island for $24.00 and the country became
New Amsterdam. But troublesome times followed under the rule of Minuit,
Wouter Van Twiller and Kieft, quarrels and actual war, or the fear of
it, with colonists to the north and south as well as with the savages,
preventing the planting of orchards and farms until in 1647 when the
reins of government were taken in hand by Peter Stuyvesant.
Governor Stuyvesant was a farmer as well as a soldier and there is
something in history and much in tradition of the Bowery Farm, which
flourished on the site of the present Bowery in New York. This farm was
planted and tended by "Peter, the Headstrong" when he was not disputing
with his burgomasters, watching the Yankees and fighting Swedes and
Indians. The orchards and gardens, according to all accounts, were
remarkably fine and were kept in a high state of cultivation. Stuyvesant
founded the farm during the stormy times of his governorship but did not
live on it until the English took possession of New Amsterdam in 1664
when he retired to the land and devoted the eighteen remaining years of
his life to agriculture. From the neighboring colonies and from abroad
he brought many fruits, flowers, farm and truck crops. Fruits came to
him also from Holland and were disseminated from his orchard up the
Hudson.
The cherry was one of the fruits much grown by the Dutch. It would be
wearisome and would serve little purpose even to attempt a cursory
review of the literature of colonial days in New York showing the spread
and the extent of fruit culture by the Dutch. Travel up the Hudson and
its branches was easy and within a century after the settlement of New
York by the Dutch, cherries were not only cultivated by the whites,
according to the records of travelers, naturalists and missionaries, but
were rudely tilled by the Indians.
For a long time after its introduction in New York, the cherry, in
common with other fruits, was grown as a species--varieties and budded
or grafted trees were probably not known. Fruit-growing as an industry
began in New York and in America, with the establishment of a nursery
at Flushing, Long Island, in 1730, by Robert Prince, founder of the
nursery which afterwards became the famous Linnæan Botanic Garden. At
what date this nursery began to offer named cherries for sale cannot be
said but advertisements appearing in 1767, 1774 and 1794 show that
budded or grafted named cherries were being offered for sale by the
Princes. In 1804, William Prince, third proprietor of the famous
Flushing nursery, prepared a list of the named cherries then under
cultivation in America for Willich's _Domestic Encyclopaedia_, an
English work which was being edited and made "applicable to the present
situation of the United States" by Dr. James Mease. The following is
Prince's list:[30]
"May Duke, ripe in May and June: long stem, round and red, an excellent
cherry, and bears well.
Black Heart, ripe in June: a fine cherry.
White Heart (or Sugar Cherry) ripe in June: white and red.
Bleeding Heart, ripe in June; a very large cherry of a long form and
dark colour; it has a pleasant taste.
Ox Heart, ripe in June: a large, firm, fine cherry.
Spanish Heart, ripe in June.
Carnation, ripe in July, it takes its name from its colour, being red
and white, a large round cherry, but not very sweet.
Amber, ripe in July.
Red Heart, do.
Late Duke, do.
Cluster, planted more for ornament, or curiosity than any other purpose.
Double Blossoms, ripe in July.
Honey Cherry, do. small sweet cherry.
Kentish cherry, ripe in July.
Mazarine, do.
Morello, do. and August; a red, acid cherry, the best for preserving,
and for making cherry-brandy.
Early Richmond Cherry. This fruit originated near Richmond in Virginia,
and is the earliest cherry in America, and valuable on that account; it
is the size of a May Duke, and resembles it in form.
Red Bigereau, a very fine cherry, ripe in July, of a heart shape.
White Bigereau, ripe in July and August: remarkably firm, heart shaped.
Large Double Flowering Cherry. This tree produces no fruit but makes a
handsome appearance in the spring, when it is covered with clusters of
double flowers as large as the cinnamon rose; it differs from the
common double flowering cherry which never forms a large tree, and has
small pointed leaves.
The three last were imported from Bordeaux in 1798.
Small Morello Cherry, called also Salem Cherry, because it came
originally from Salem County, N. J., is cultivated by Mr. Cooper of that
state, who values it highly. The fruit has a lively acid taste. The tree
produces abundantly, and is the least subject to worms of any cherry
trees.
Mr. C. says that the Bleeding Heart suits a sandy soil, but that the
May-duke will not flourish in it."
[30] Willich _Domestic Encyclopaedia_ 105. 1804.
CHERRIES IN THE SOUTH
It would be interesting but hardly of sufficient profit to trace further
the history of cultivated cherries in the states of the Atlantic
seaboard. References to the cherry abound in the colonial records of
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware but they bring out no facts
differing materially from those abstracted from the records of the
northern colonies. The Quakers and the Swedes in the states watered by
the Delaware and the English in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina,
all early grew cherries as one of the easiest fruits to propagate and
cultivate.
Space can be spared for but two brief quotations to show the condition
of cherry culture in the South in Colonial days. The first is from
Bruce's Economic History of Virginia.[31]
"In the closing years of the seventeenth century, there were few
plantations in Virginia which did not possess orchards of apple
and peach trees, pear, plum, apricot and quince.[32] The number
of trees was often very large. The orchard of Robert Hide of
York[33] contained three hundred peach and three hundred apple
trees. There were twenty-five hundred apple trees in the orchard
of Colonel Fitzhugh.[34] Each species of fruit was represented by
many varieties; thus, of the apple, there were mains, pippins,
russentens, costards, marigolds, kings, magitens and bachelors;
of the pear, bergamy and warden. The quince was greater in size,
but less acidulated than the English quince; on the other hand,
the apricot and plum were inferior in quality to the English, not
ripening in the same perfection.[35] Cherries grew in notable
abundance. So great was the productive capacity of the peach
that some of the landowners planted orchards of the tree for
the mere purpose of using the fruit to fatten their hogs;[36] on
some plantations, as many as forty bushels are said to have been
knocked down to the swine in the course of a single season."[37]
The second quotation is from Lawson's History of Carolina.[38]
"We have the common, red and black cherry, which bear well. I
never saw any grafted in this country, the common excepted, which
was grafted on an indian plum stock, and bore well. This is a good
way, because our common cherry trees are very apt to put scions
all around the tree for a great distance, which must needs be
prejudicial to the tree and fruit. Not only our cherries are apt
to do so, but our apples and most other fruit trees, which may
chiefly be imputed to the negligence and unskillfulness of the
gardner. Our cherries are ripe a month sooner than in Virginia."
[31] Bruce _Economic History of Virginia_ =1=:468. 1895.
[32] Glover _Philo. Trans. Royal Soc._ 1676-1678, vols. XI-XII, p.
628.
[33] _Records of York County_ vol. 1694-1697, p. 71, Va. State
Library.
[34] _Letters of William Fitzhugh_ April 22, 1686.
[35] Glover _Philo. Trans. Royal Soc._ 1676-1678, vols. XI-XII, p.
628.
[36] Beverley _History of Virginia_ p. 260.
[37] Glover _Philo. Trans. Royal Soc._ 1676-1678, vols. XI-XII, p.
628.
[38] Lawson _History of Carolina_ 183. 1714. (Reprint of 1860.)
CHERRIES IN THE MIDDLE WEST
At a surprisingly early date the cherry, with the apple, peach, pear and
plum, was being grown far inland in the New World. Southeastern Michigan
was settled in 1701 at Detroit and within a half-century settlements had
been made at Vincennes, Indiana; Kaskaskia and Cahokia, Illinois; and at
Saint Louis and several other points in Missouri. The orchards and
gardens of the early French settlers in these states live in the
traditions of all the settlements; but much more substantial evidence
was to be found a century ago, and in the case of the apple and pear may
still be found, in the venerable trees of all the tree-fruit in and
about these old French posts. "The homes of these pioneers," so good an
authority as Parkman tells us, "were generally placed in gardens
surrounded by fruit trees of apples, pears, cherries and peaches." Were
proof lacking of these early plantations, it might be assumed that
people so fond of horticulture as the French would not long be unmindful
of the value to themselves and their posterity of plantations of fruit
trees.
CHERRIES ON THE PACIFIC COAST
The history of the cherry in America is not complete without some
mention of its introduction, culture and the development of new
varieties on the Pacific coast. Indeed, it is not too much to say that
at no time nor at any place in its whole history has the cherry made
greater advancement than during the last half-century in Oregon,
California and Washington--naming the states in order of their
contribution to cherry culture.
At about the time the colonies were beginning their struggle with the
mother country for independence, Franciscan monks were establishing
missions in California. To these they brought seeds of fruits, grains,
flowers and vegetables, as several historians of the missions tell us,
and as the trees found by Americans a few decades later make certain as
regards fruits. It is probable that by the close of the Revolutionary
war all subtropical and temperate fruits of Europe were to be found
cultivated in the missions of California. Among these, in an enumeration
of the products of the missions, the cherry is listed by E. S.
Capson.[39] From its introduction at approximately the close of the
Eighteenth Century, the cherry continued to be cultivated, at times more
or less sparsely to be sure, until, by conquest in the war with Mexico,
California passed into the possession of the United States. A new era in
horticulture began in California soon after the influx of gold-seekers
in 1849, some of whom, noting the opportunities of fruit-growing, at
once began the importation of seeds and plants.
Modern fruit-growing on the Pacific Coast, however, began in Oregon. The
California Argonauts of '49 were much too busily engaged in digging gold
to think of getting it indirectly by tilling the soil, whereas the men
who were then crossing the plains from Missouri or sailing around the
Horn from New England to Oregon were home-makers and true tillers of the
soil. These early Oregonians were the forerunners in the zeal and
enterprise which have made horticulture on this coast the marvel of
modern agriculture. But one of the several early horticulturists of
Oregon can be mentioned here, he deserving special mention by virtue of
his work with cherries.
Until 1847 the few cultivated fruits to be found in Oregon were
seedlings mostly grown by employees of the Hudson Bay Fur Company. In
that year there was a notable importation of cultivated fruits across
the plains--a venture which quickly proved pregnant with results in
fruit harvests which have not ceased and give promise long to continue.
Henderson Lewelling crossed the plains from Henry County, Iowa, and
brought with him a choice selection of grafted fruits. These he
transported in boxes of soil which he hauled in a wagon drawn by oxen.
Arriving in Oregon late in the fall of 1847 he found that he had 300
trees alive which he planted at what is now Milwaukee, a few miles south
of Portland on the east side of the Willamette River. Later, seeds were
brought for stocks, though for the cherry the wild species, _Prunus
emarginata_ and _Prunus virginiana_, were used and very successfully,
until Mazzard
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