It is doubtful if this cherry is as promising for cultivation as the foregoing species and not nearly as worthy attention as the next cherry. PRUNUS BESSEYI Bailey. 1. Bailey _Cor. Ex. Sta. Bul._ =70=:261. 1894. 2. _Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb._ =3=:156. 1895. 3. Bessey _Neb. Hort. Soc._ =26=:168. 1895. Bessey _l. c._ =37=:121. 1906. 4. Britton and Brown _Ill. Flora_ =3=:251. 1897. _P. pumila Besseyi._ 5. Waugh _Vt. Ex. Sta. Rpt._ =12=:239. 1898-99. 6. Bailey _Cyc. Am. Hort._ 3:1451. 1901. Plant a small shrub, spreading or diffuse, one to four feet in height, open-centered, slow-growing, hardy; trunk slender, smooth; branches slender, smooth, very dark brownish-black, with numerous lenticels; branchlets slender, short, with short internodes, dull grayish-brown becoming almost black, smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, small, raised lenticels. Leaves hanging late, numerous, small, two and three-eighths inches long, one inch wide, thick, stiff, slightly folded upward or nearly flat; apex with a short taper-point, broadly lanceolate to nearly oval-lanceolate; upper surface dark green, glossy, smooth; lower surface very light green, not pubescent; midrib distinct, glabrous; veins small but distinct; margin serrate, teeth appressed, tipped with indistinct, sharp glands; petiole thick, three-eighths inch in length, glandless or with from one to two very small, light colored, globose glands on the petiole at the base of the leaf; stipules very prominent, almost leaf-like. Flowers appearing with the leaves in sessile umbels, small, less than a half-inch across, white; fruit more than a half-inch in diameter, globose, sometimes oblong-pointed, yellowish, mottled or more often purple-black; variable in quality but always more or less astringent; ripening in early August; stone large, globose, slightly flattened. The habitat of _Prunus besseyi_ is not yet definitely bounded but it can, at least, be said that this species is to be found on the prairies from Manitoba and Minnesota to southern Kansas and westward into Montana, Wyoming and Utah. In its natural range it undoubtedly runs into that of _Prunus pumila_ to the east, and Waugh, in the reference given, holds that the two species grade into each other and he, therefore, makes this a variety of the eastern species. Certainly _Prunus pumila_ and _Prunus besseyi_ are as distinct as are many other of the more or less indefinite species of this genus--few, indeed, are the species of Prunus that do not have outliers which overlap other types and, as we shall see, there are hybrids between this and species of other cherries, plums and even peaches and apricots, showing that the lines of demarcation between the members of this genus are difficult to define.