=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds ovate, 1/8 inch long, covered with imbricated brown scales. Leaves 2-5 inches long, about half as wide, dark green above and glossy when full grown, paler below, turning in autumn to orange, deep red, or pale yellow, firm, smooth on both sides, elliptical, oblong, or lanceolate-oblong; finely serrate with short, incurved teeth; apex sharp; base acute or roundish; meshes of veins minute; petioles 1/2 inch long, with usually two or more glands near the base of the leaf; stipules glandular-edged, falling as the leaf expands. =Inflorescence.=--May to June. From new leafy shoots, in simple, loose racemes, 4-5 inches long; flowers small; calyx with 5 short teeth separated by shallow sinuses, persistent after the cherry falls; petals 5, spreading, white, obovate; stamens numerous; pistil one; style single. =Fruit.=--September. Somewhat flattened vertically, 1/4 inch in diameter; purplish-black, edible, slightly bitter. =Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in New England; in rich soil in open situations young trees grow very rapidly, old trees rather slowly. Seldom used for ornamental purposes, but serves well as a nurse tree for forest plantations, or where quick results and a luxurious foliage effect is desired, on inland exposures or near the seacoast. The branches are very liable to disfigurement by the black-knot and the foliage by the tent-caterpillar. Large plants are seldom for sale, but seedlings may be obtained in large quantities and at low prices. A weeping horticultural form is occasionally offered. Propagated from seed. [Illustration: PLATE LXV.--Prunus serotina.] 1. Winter buds. 2. Flowering branch. 3. Flower with part of perianth and stamens removed. 4. A petal. 5. Fruiting branch. 6. Mature leaf. =Prunus Avium, L.= MAZARD CHERRY. Introduced from England; occasionally spontaneous along fences and the borders of woodlands. As an escape, 25-50 feet high, with a trunk diameter of 1-2 feet; head oblong or ovate; branches mostly ascending. Leaves ovate to obovate, more or less pubescent beneath, serrate, 3-5 inches long; leafstalk about 1/2 inch long, often glandular near base of leaf; inflorescence in umbels; flowers white, expanding with the leaves; fruit dark red, sweet, mostly inferior or blighted. LEGUMINOSAE. PULSE FAMILY. =Gleditsia triacanthos, L.= HONEY LOCUST. THREE-THORNED ACACIA. =Habitat and Range.=--In its native habitat growing in a variety of soils; rich woods, mountain sides, sterile plains. Southern Ontario. Maine,--young trees in the southern sections said to have been produced from self-sown seed (M. L. Fernald); New Hampshire and Vermont,--introduced; Massachusetts,--occasional; Rhode Island,--introduced and fully at home (J. F. Collins); Connecticut,--not reported. Probably sparingly naturalized in many other places in New England.