Of all organs, the fruit of the cherry is most responsive to changed conditions and hence most variable, yet the fruits furnish very valuable taxonomic characters in both botany and pomology. In pomology, in particular, the fruits must be closely studied. Size, shape, color, bloom, stem, cavity, apex, suture and skin are the outward characters of which note must be made; while the color, aroma, flavor and texture of the flesh are usually very characteristic. Both species and varieties are well distinguished by the time of ripening though there is much variation in ripening dates. The keeping quality is scarcely taken into account with cherries but varies a great deal, chiefly in accordance with firmness of the flesh. The flesh of cherries, as in all drupaceous fruits, clings to the stone or is wholly or partly free--a character of interest both to the systematist and to the fruit-grower. The color of the juice, whether colorless or red, is a plain and certain dividing line in both species and varieties. The pits of cherries are rather more lacking in distinction than in other stone-fruits, plums for example, yet they must be accounted of considerable value in determination and for this reason have been included in all of the color-plates of varieties. Cherry-pits from individual trees are almost lacking in differences except in size but between species and varieties show many distinctions not only in size but in shape, surfaces, grooves and ridges, in the ends and more or less in the seeds within. Cherries of any variety grown on poor soils or in incongenial climates tend to have large stones and little flesh, while the pits are smaller and there is more flesh with the opposite extremes in environment. As will be pointed out in the discussion of the group of cherries known as the Dukes, many varieties have pits with shrunken and abortive seeds coming, as we think, from the hybrid origin of these cherries. The several pages given to the discussion of the characters of cherries are in preparation for a proper understanding of the classifications and descriptions of species and varieties. We are now ready for the classification of the species of cherries which contribute or may contribute forms for cultivation either for their fruits or as stocks upon which to grow edible cherries. The following is a brief conspectus of the edible species of Prunus followed by a fuller conspectus of the sub-genus Cerasus to which cherries belong. A CLASSIFICATION OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES