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Plums and the Cherries — Part 2

As a shade and ornamental tree the black cherry is charmingly unconventional. It is somewhat wayward in habit and sparse in foliage, but it carries neither trait to extremes. The foliage mass is carried with the grace of a willow, for the leaves are narrow and pointed, and they hang on slender petioles.

While the opening leaves are still red the flowers come on, in dainty, erect racemes that bloom from the bottom upward to the top. The heavy fruits invert the clusters, and remain until late summer. They are sweet and not unpleasant in flavour, eaten before they are thoroughly ripe by birds and by children.

The Choke Cherry (Prunus Virginiana, Linn.) is a miniature tree, as a rule, rarely growing higher than a thrifty lilac bush except in the region between Nebraska and northern Texas. Its shiny bark, racemed flowers and fruit, and the odour of its leaves and bark may lead one to confuse it with a black cherry sapling. But this mistake need not occur. The leaves and bark of the black cherry are aromatic and pungent, and the taste is bitter. The choke cherry exhales an odour that is rank and disagreeable beside being pungent, and the taste is intensified in the same unpleasant way. The leaves of choke cherry are nearly twice as broad as those of P. serotina, and abruptly pointed; its 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.

The birds are not so fastidious. They strip the trees before the fruit turns black. It is probably by these unconscious agents of seed distribution that the choke cherry has become so widely scattered. From the Arctic circle to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains it is found in all wooded regions.

The Western Wild Cherry (P. demissa, Walp.) occurs west of the Rocky Mountains, and on to the Pacific. Closely related to the Eastern choke cherry, it differs in having thicker leaves and sweeter, scarcely astringent fruit. It is easy to believe that these Western trees belong to the Eastern species, but are modified by climatic conditions into a new form. Where their ranges meet, it is hard to distinguish the two species.