Trees Worth Knowing Part 19

[Ill.u.s.tration: _See page 130_

FLOWERS, FRUIT, AND ODD LEAF PATTERNS OF THE Sa.s.sAFRAS TREE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _See page 141_

FOLIAGE AND FLOWER Cl.u.s.tER OF THE SMOOTH SUMACH]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _See page 148_

BUDS, LEAVES, AND FRUIT OF THE WILD CRABAPPLE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _See page 151_

THE CANADA PLUM

Its white, fragrant flowers turn pink in fading; and its stiff, zigzag branches are beset with spiny stubs]

=The Canada Plum=

_P. nigra._, Ait.

The Canada plum (_see ill.u.s.tration, page 151_) whose range dips down into the northern tier of states, is so near like the previous species as to be called by Waugh a mere variety. Its leaves are broad and large, and the flowers and fruit larger. A peculiarity of blossoming time is that the petals turn pink before they fall. This tree furnished the settler with a relish for his hard fare, and the horticulturist a hardy stock on which to graft scions of tenderer and better varieties of plums. It is a tree well worth bringing in from the woods to set in a bare fence-corner that will be beautified by the blossoms in spring, and in late summer by the bright orange-colored fruit against the ruddy foliage.

Exotic plums have greatly enriched our horticulture, giving us fruits that vie with the peach in size and lusciousness. In New-England gardens, the damsons, green gages and big red plums are imported varieties of the woolly twigged, thick-leaved European, _P.

domestica_, which refused utterly to feel at home on its own roots in the great middle prairies of the country. These European plums have found a congenial home in the mild climate of the West Coast.

j.a.pan has furnished to the Middle West and South a hardy, prolific species, _P. triflora_, generally immune to the black knot, a fungous disease which attacks native plums. Crosses between the j.a.panese and American native plums promise well. California now ranks first in prune raising as an industry, with France a close second. Prunes are the dried fruit of certain sweet, fleshy kinds of plums. Many cultivated varieties of j.a.panese plums have enriched the horticulture of our West Coast.

The almond, now grown commercially in California, is the one member of the genus prunus whose flesh is dry and woody, and whose pit is a commercial nut.

THE CHERRIES

Small-fruited members of the genus prunus, wild and cultivated, are grouped under the popular name, cherries, by common consent. The pie cherry of New-England gardens is _prunus cerasus_, Linn. It often runs wild from gardens, forming roadside thickets, with small sour red fruits, as nearly worthless as at home in the wilds of Europe and Asia. This tree has, through cultivation, given rise to two groups of sour cherries cultivated in America. The early, light-red varieties, with uncolored juice, of which the Early Richmond is a familiar type, and the late, dark-red varieties, with colored juice, of which the English Morello is the type.

The sweet cherry of Europe (_P. Avium_, Linn.) has given us our cultivated sweet cherries, whose fruit is more or less heart-shaped.

j.a.pan celebrates each spring the festival of cherry blossom time, a great national fete, when the gardens burst suddenly into the marvelous bloom of _Sakura_, the cherry tree, symbol of happiness, in which people of all cla.s.ses delight. The native species (_P.

pseudo-Cerasus_), has been cultivated by j.a.panese artist-gardeners in the one direction of beauty for centuries. Not in flowers alone, but in leaf, in branching habit, and even in bark, beauty has been the ideal toward which patience and skill have striven successfully.

"Spring is the season of the eye," says the j.a.panese poet. Of all their national flower holidays, cherry blossom time, in the third month, is the climax.

=The Wild Cherry=

_Prunus Pennsylvanica_, Linn.

The wild red, bird, or pin cherry grows in rocky woods, forming thickets and valuable nurse trees to hardwoods, from Newfoundland to Georgia, and west to the Rocky Mountains. The birds enjoy the ruddy little fruits and hold high carnival in June among the shining leaves.

Many an ugly ravine is clothed with verdure and whitened with nectar-laden flowers by this comparatively worthless, short-lived tree; and in many burnt-over districts, the bird-sown pits strike root, and the young trees render a distinct service to forestry by this young growth, which is gone by the time the pines and hardwoods it has nursed require the ground for their spreading roots.

=The Wild Black Cherry=

_P. serotina_, Ehrh.

The wild black cherry or rum cherry (_see ill.u.s.tration, page 166_), is the substantial lumber tree of the genus, whose ponderous trunk furnishes cherry wood, vying with mahogany and rosewood in the esteem of the cabinet-maker, who uses cherry for veneer oftener than for solid furniture.

The drug trade depends upon this tree for a tonic derived from its bark, roots, and fruit. Cherry brandies, cordials, and cherry bounce, that good old-fashioned homebrewed beverage, are made from the heavy-cl.u.s.tered fruits that hang until late summer, turning black and losing their astringency when dead ripe.

From Ontario to Dakota, and south to Florida and Texas, this tree is found, reaching its best estate in moist, rich soil, but climbing mountain canyons at elevations of from five to seven thousand feet. A worthy shade and park tree, the black cherry is charmingly unconventional, carrying its ma.s.s of drooping foliage with the grace of a willow, its satiny brown bark curling at the edges of irregular plates like that of the cherry birch.

=The Choke Cherry=

_P. Virginiana_, Linn.

The choke cherry is a miniature tree no higher than a thrifty lilac bush, from the Eastern states to the Mississippi, but between Nebraska and northern Texas it reaches thirty-five feet in height. The trunk is always short, often crooked or leaning, and never exceeds one foot in diameter. Its shiny bark, long racemed flowers and fruit, and the pungent odor of its leaves and bark might lead one to confuse it with a black cherry sapling. But there is a marked difference between the two species. The choke cherry's odor is not only pungent, but rank and disagreeable besides. The leaf of the choke cherry is a wide and abruptly pointed oval. The fruit until dead ripe is red or yellow, and so puckery, harsh, and bitter that children, who eat the black cherries eagerly, cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second time.

Birds are not so fastidious; they often strip the trees before the berries darken. It is probably by these unconscious agents of seed distribution that choke-cherry pits are scattered. From the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains this worthless little choke cherry is found in all wooded regions.

THE HAWTHORNS

In the same rose family with apples, plums, cherries, and service-berries is listed the genus _Crataegus_, a shrubby race of trees, undersized as a rule, with stiff, zigzag branches set with thorns. Over one hundred species have been described by Charles Sargent in his "Manual of Trees of North America," published in 1905.

The centre of distribution for the hawthorn is undoubtedly the eastern United States. From Newfoundland the woods are full of them. A few species belong to the Rocky Mountain region, a few to the states farther west. Europe and Asia each has a few native hawthorns.

=The English Hawthorn=

_Crataegus oxyacantha_, Linn.

The English hawthorn is the best-known species in the world. When it first came into cultivation, no man knows. Englishmen will tell you it has always formed the hedge-rows of the countryside. This is the "blossoming May." The sweetness of its flowers, snowy white, or pink, or rose-colored, turns rural England into a garden, while linnets and skylarks fill the green lanes with music.

American "forests primeval" were swept with the woodman's axe before the hawthorns had their chance to a.s.sert themselves sufficiently to attract the attention of botanists and horticulturists. The showy flowers and fruits, the vivid coloring of autumn foliage, and the striking picturesqueness of the bare tree, with its rigid branches armed with menacing thorns, give most of these little trees attractiveness at any season. They grow in any soil and in any situation, and show the most remarkable improvement when cultivated.

Their roots thrive in heavy clay. When young the little trees may be easily transplanted from the wild. They come readily from seed, though in most species the seed takes two years to germinate.

With few exceptions, the flowers of our hawthorns are pure white, perfect, their parts in multiples of five--a family trait. Each flower is a miniature white rose. Rounded corymbs of these flowers on short side twigs cover the tree with a robe of white after the leaves appear. In autumn little fleshy fruits that look like apples, cl.u.s.ter on the twigs. Inside the thick skin, the flesh is mealy and sweetish around a few hard nutlets that contain the seed. As a rule, the fruits are red. In a few species they are orange; in still fewer, yellow, blue, or black.

It is not practicable to describe the many varieties of our native hawthorns in a volume of the scope of this one. A few of the most distinctive species only can be included, but no one will ever confuse a hawthorn with any other tree.

=The c.o.c.kspur Thorn=

_C. Crus-galli_, Linn.

The c.o.c.kspur thorn is a small, handsome tree, fifteen to twenty feet high, with stiff branches in a broad round head. The thorns on the sides of the twig are three to four inches long, sometimes when old becoming branched, and reaching a length of six or eight inches. Stout and brown or gray, they often curve, striking downward as a rule, on the horizontal branches. The leaves, thick, leathery, l.u.s.trous, dark green above, pale beneath, one to four inches long, taper to a short stout stalk, seeming to stand on tiptoe, as if to keep out of the way of the thorns. From the ground up, the tree is clothed in bark that is bright and polished, shading from reddish brown to gray. The flowers come late, in showy cl.u.s.ters; and the fruit gleams red against the reddening leaves. As winter comes on the leaves fall and the branches are brightened by the fruit cl.u.s.ters which are not taken by the birds (_see ill.u.s.tration, page 167_). All the year long the c.o.c.kspur thorn is a beautiful, ornamental tree and a competent hedge plant, popular alike in Europe and America.