Here I go again, hazarding a guess as to what plant I found in the woods on a recent ramble. I think I can say without being chary that these are cherries. They look like cherries, the bark of the tree they were attached to looked like cherry tree bark. And according to no lessor source that the Missouri Department of Conservation, black cherry trees can be found in every county in the state. I actually have far more cherry trees in my forest that I would expect to find. This one is growing on a comparatively dry ridge top, which isn't the preferred habitat. I've found them in all of the "zones" of Roundrock, but the biggest one I've identified thus far -- maybe a foot diameter trunk -- grows beside the road at the western end of the property; this is where the soil is deep and rock free (mostly). This tree is also leaning over the road, and I always expect to find it fallen on the road when we visit the woods. Should that ever happen, I will cut the longest length of it I can and present it to my good friend Duff for his wood shop. He carves, he makes furniture, and he otherwise is in good with the wood gods to have all of his skill (also, lotsa tools). The reason I wouldn't expect to find many cherry trees in my forest is because the land was once part of a cattle ranch. The twigs, leaves, and bark of this tree contain prussic acid, and if they are consumed by cattle, the poor beasts can bloat and die. I imagine that the ranchers would have cut down any cherry trees they found to protect their livestock, and this may account for the occasional stump we find that was from a tree clearly too small to have been selected for timber. The cattle ranch stopped operation, at least in my part of the forest, thirty years ago, and this may account for why nearly all of the cherry trees I have come across are comparatively young and small. They are mostly saplings that beaver could feed on if we had any of those. Perhaps they are upstart trees in the years since the ranchers let the forest go fallow. (I also wonder if the presence of the poisonous cherry trees could account for the cattle bones we sometimes come across in our wandering about the forest.) Now, it is possible that I have misidentified the fruit above. Maybe those aren't cherries. Even if they aren't, though, my rambling speculations about cherry trees in the woods at Roundrock still seem valid, so go easy on my if I am wrong. Missouri calendar:

• Beavers feed on sapling reserves.

Today in Missouri history:

• Cardinal John Glennon, the first Catholic Cardinal west of the Mississippi, was appointed to the office on this date in 1945.

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