WILD PLUM
Prunus americana, Marsh.
Form.—Height 10-25 feet, diameter 6-12 inches; trunk short supporting a wide-spreading crown of horizontal and drooping branches.
Leaves.—Alternate, simple 2-4 inches long, narrowly obovate, long taper-pointed at apex, sharply and doubly serrate, firm, dark green and rough above, paler and hairy below.
Flowers.—May, with the leaves; perfect; 1 inch wide, white, arranged in 2-5-flowered umbels.
Fruit.—Ripens in early autumn; a globose, red drupe about 1 inch in diameter, the flesh sweet and edible; stone flattened.
Bark.—Grayish-brown and rough on old trunks with thin, flat plates.
Wood.—Hard, heavy, strong, close-grained, red-brown, with thin light sapwood.
Range.—New York to Florida, west to Texas and Montana.
Distribution in West Virginia.—Scattered throughout the State but nowhere common except in small areas.
Habitat.—Grows principally on swamp borders and along streams.
Notes.—The Wild Plum is found growing in dense thickets in some of our upland swamps where it produces large crops of fruit. The tree is of little importance commercially but is sometimes used as a stock upon which domestic plums are grafted.