Cleveland is a Bigarreau which falls so far short of its near kin, as it
grows in New York at least, as not to be worth planting except as an
early cherry of its type--earliness being its one saving asset. The
cherries closely resemble Rockport in size, color, shape and flavor, are
in no way better than that somewhat mediocre sort and are even more
subject to brown-rot. It ripens with Black Tartarian and can never
compete in orchard or market with that sort. Possibly Cleveland has too
much merit to be wholly neglected yet it certainly is not worth planting
in New York unless in a locality where it does exceptionally well and
when an early cherry of its kind is wanted.
Cleveland is said by its introducer, Professor J. P. Kirtland, to be a
seedling from Yellow Spanish. Its close similarity to Rockport suggests
that it may have come from a pit of that variety. It was brought out in
1842 but was not adopted by the American Pomological Society for its
fruit list until 1862. Despite rapidly passing popularity it is still on
this list.
Tree of medium size and vigor, upright-spreading, open, very
productive; trunk of medium diameter and smoothness; branches
smooth, reddish-brown partly overspread with ash-gray, with many
small lenticels; branchlets slender, brown partly overspread with
ash-gray, smooth, with numerous small, inconspicuous lenticels.
Leaves numerous, five inches long, two and one-half inches wide,
folded upward, obovate to long-elliptical, thin; upper surface
medium green, slightly rugose; lower surface light green, lightly
pubescent; apex acute, base abrupt; margin coarsely and doubly
serrate, glandular; petiole often two inches long, reddish, rather
slender, hairy, grooved, glandless or with from one to four
reniform, reddish glands, usually on the stalk.
Buds small, short, pointed, plump, free, arranged singly as
lateral buds or in clusters of variable size on rather short
spurs; leaf-scars prominent; flowers white, one and one-fourth
inches across; borne in scattered clusters, usually in twos;
pedicels three-fourths inch long, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube
green, tinged with red, light green within, broadly campanulate,
glabrous; calyx-lobes tinged with red, broad, acute, glabrous
within and without, reflexed; petals roundish, entire, with
short, broad claws, notched and crinkled at the apex; filaments in
four series, the longest averaging one-half inch in length; pistil
glabrous, shorter than the stamens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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