Black Tartarian came originally from Russia. It was introduced into England in 1794 from Circassia, by Hugh Ronalds of Brentford, Middlesex, as Ronald's Large Black Heart. Two years later, John Fraser introduced a variety, a native of Crimea, which he purchased in St. Petersburg, as Fraser's Black Tartarian. This turned out to be the same as the cherry from Circassia. Some go farther back and say that Black Tartarian was carried to Russia from Spain, thence to England. It owes its introduction into this country to William Prince of Flushing, Long Island, probably in the early part of the Nineteenth Century. It was recognized in 1848 and placed on the schedule of fruits at the National Convention of Fruit Growers which later became the present American Pomological Society. The variety still retains a place among the recommended cherries but under the name Tartarian. The variety quickly became popular in America, finding a place in every orchard and in the lists of all nurserymen. Some nurserymen claim to have superior strains of the old variety; as, Green's Tartarian and Black Tartarian Improved. Comparisons show no differences. Black Russian, listed by some firms, is probably Black Tartarian as it is used many times as a synonym by foreign writers. [Illustration: BLACK TARTARIAN] Tree characteristically large, vigorous, upright, vasiform, productive; trunk of medium thickness, smooth; branches smooth, reddish-brown, slightly overspread with ash-gray, with large lenticels; branchlets rather long, brown almost entirely overspread with ash-gray, smooth, glabrous, with inconspicuous, slightly raised lenticels. Leaves numerous, five and one-half inches long, two and one-half inches wide, folded upward, obovate to elliptical, thin; upper surface dark green, rugose; lower surface light green, slightly pubescent; apex acute, base abrupt; margin varies from serrate to crenate; petiole two inches long, thick, tinged with red, with a few hairs, with from one to three reniform, reddish glands of medium size usually on the stalk. Buds pointed or obtuse, plump, free, arranged singly as lateral buds, or in small clusters on spurs of variable length; leaf-scars very prominent; season of bloom medium; flowers white, one and one-fourth inches across, borne in scattering well-distributed clusters in twos and threes; pedicels one inch long, slender, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube faintly tinged with red, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes with a trace of red, long, broad, obtuse, glabrous within and without, reflexed; petals roundish, entire, with short, blunt claws; anthers yellowish; filaments nearly one-half inch long; pistil glabrous, shorter than the stamens.