Buds conical or pointed, plump, free, arranged singly as lateral buds and in very numerous clusters variable in size, on short spurs; leaf-scars somewhat prominent; season of bloom intermediate; flowers white, one and one-fourth inches across; borne in scattering clusters, in ones and twos; pedicels one inch long, slender, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube green, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes greenish or with a tinge of red, acute, glabrous within and without, reflexed; petals broad-oval, slightly crenate, with short, blunt claws; filaments five-sixteenths of an inch long; pistil glabrous, shorter than the stamens. Fruit matures in late mid-season; three-fourths of an inch in diameter, slightly oblong to conical, compressed; cavity deep, wide, flaring; suture a line; apex roundish, with a depression at the center; color very dark red becoming almost black; dots numerous, small, russet, obscure; stem slender, one and one-fourth inches long, adherent to the fruit; skin thin, adhering to the pulp; flesh light red, with reddish juice, tender, meaty, crisp, mild, sweet; good to very good in quality; stone semi-free, ovate, flattened, blunt-pointed, with smooth surfaces; ventral suture rather prominent near the apex. WOOD _Prunus avium_ =1.= _Am. Pom. Soc. Cat._ 26. 1909. _Governor Wood._ =2.= Elliott _Fr. Book_ 196 fig. 1854. =3.= _Am. Pom. Soc. Cat._ 108. 1856. =4.= Leroy _Dict. Pom._ =5=:324 fig. 1877. Wood is preeminently a Sweet Cherry for the amateur, having many qualities that fit it for the home orchard and but few to commend it to commercial growers. The trees are a little tender to cold, are not quite productive enough to make the variety profitable and are, too, somewhat fastidious as to soils. To offset these defects, they are vigorous and healthy and bear early. But the chief fault of the cherry from the cherry-grower's standpoint is to be found in the fruit. The flesh is soft and the cherries will not stand handling in harvesting and shipping and are very susceptible to brown-rot and crack badly in wet weather. Wood has special merit in the home collection, however, because of its earliness, its beautiful appearance and delicious flavor. It is one of the first of the Sweet Cherries, is large and, as the color-plate shows, is a beautiful yellowish-white tinted with shades of crimson, with conspicuous russet dots--a beautiful fruit. The flesh separates readily from the skin, is tender, juicy, with an abundance of colorless juice and a flavor that has given it the reputation, wherever grown in America, of being one of the best in quality. It would be hard to name another cherry better suited for small plantations and it is to be hoped that it will long be kept in the gardens of connoisseurs of good fruit.