1. Porter Bot. Gaz. 2:85. 1877. 2. Ibid. Gar. and For. 3:428, fig. 53. 1890. 3. Sargent Sil. N. Am. 4:27, Pl. 153. 1892. 4. Bailey Ev. Nat. Fr. 225. 1898.
Tree low, slender, straggling, fifteen to eighteen feet in height, or a low shrub; trunk-diameter from five to eight inches; bark dark brown, surface fissured and scaly; branches numerous, upright, rigid, seldom spiny; branchlets pubescent, becoming glabrous and red, turning to dark brown; lenticels many, small, white.
Leaves ovate-oblong or lanceolate, sometimes obovate, apex acute or acuminate, base rounded, margin sharply serrate, teeth fine and tipped with glands, in texture thick and firm; upper surface dark green and glabrous; lower surface light green, glabrous except on the veins and midrib; petioles short, slender, pubescent; glands two, large, at the base of the blade.
Flowers white, fading to pink, one-half inch across, appearing with the leaves; borne in two to five-flowered umbels; pedicels slender, finely tomentose, from one-fourth to one-half inch in length; calyx-tube narrowly obconic; calyx-lobes entire, pubescent on the outer, tomentose on the inner surface; petals rounded but narrowing into claws at the base; filaments and ovary glabrous; anthers often reddish; style slender with a funnel-shaped apex.
Fruit matures in summer or early autumn; from one-quarter to three-quarters inch in diameter, sub-globose or ovoid, dark blue or purple with heavy bloom; skin thick and tough; flesh yellow, juicy, acid and somewhat astringent; stone clinging to the flesh, turgid, acute at the ends, thin-walled, ridged on the ventral and grooved on the dorsal suture.
In leaf, flower and tree Prunus alleghaniensis resembles Prunus americana. The species has long been known to be distinct, however, having been first distinguished by J. R. Lowrie of Warriorsmark, Pennsylvania, in 1859,[122] and was published as such in 1877, when T. C. Porter of Lafayette College described it as Prunus alleghaniensis. It differs from Prunus americana chiefly in the smaller size of the plant, smaller leaves and flowers, in color of flowers which fade to pink in this species, and in fruit-characters. The fruit matures earlier, is much smaller in size, is more globose, and is a dark purple or blue with very heavy bloom. The skin is thick and tough and while the texture of the flesh is as good as that of the wild Americanas the flavor is much more astringent. The stone is more swollen. The plant is commonly but a shrub, usually found along fence rows and the borders of woodlands, but intermingled among old thickets of this kind there are often a few small trees. It is a hardy species, very productive, and seemingly but little attacked by either insects or fungi, being especially exempt from black-knot.[123] In the wild state it produces great numbers of suckers which seem to spring very readily from a bruise or an exposed root.
The range of Prunus alleghaniensis is exceedingly limited. It is found in abundance only in a small territory in central Pennsylvania, being of most frequent occurrence in the barrens of northern Huntingdon County, extending from there north into Center County and northwestward over the Alleghany Mountains into Clearfield and Elk counties. It grows for the most part in elevated lands of the wildest character, being found on low, moist soils, on high and dry barrens and on limestone cliffs, reaching its greatest size in the last situation.
Specimens identified as Prunus alleghaniensis have been found in at least two places in Connecticut and the writer has just seen specimens of a closely allied form collected by W. F. Wight of the United States Department of Agriculture a few miles south of Houghton Lake, Roscommon County, Michigan.
This plum is not yet introduced into cultivation and it is doubtful if the wild fruits have sufficient merit to make an attempt at domestication promising. While the wild fruits are locally used for various culinary purposes it is so much inferior to other native plums, being almost uneatable unless cooked, that its cultivation would hardly warrant the effort. Arboretum specimens of the tree show it to be somewhat desirable as an ornamental, being a small, compact, upright plant, very floriferous, and bearing an abundance of rather attractive fruit.
1. Bentham Pl. Hartweg. 308. 1848. 2. Torrey Pac. R. Rpt. 4:82. 1854. 3. Brewer and Watson Bot. Calif. 1:167. 1880 (in part). 4. Lemmon Pittonia 2:68. 1890. 5. Greene Fl. Francis 1:49. 1891. 6. Bailey Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:76. 1892. 7. Sargent Sil. N. Am. 4:31, 32, Pl. 154. 1892.
Tree small, rarely attaining a height of twenty-five feet, sometimes a shrub ten or twelve feet high and often a bush but three or four feet in height; trunk medium in length with a diameter of 8 to 12 inches; bark gray-brown and deeply fissured; branches stout and spreading; branchlets glabrous or pubescent, bright red becoming darker red and finally a dark-brown or gray; lenticels minute, whitish.
Leaves round-ovate, sub-cordate or truncate, or sometimes cuneate at the base; margins either sharply or obtusely serrate, sometimes doubly serrate; young leaves pubescent but at maturity nearly glabrous, somewhat coriaceous, dark green on the upper and pale green on the lower surface, with very conspicuous midribs and veins; stipules acute-lanceolate, caducous.
Flowers white, fading to rose, about an inch across; appearing before the leaves; usually borne in threes, often in pairs on short pubescent pedicels; calyx campanulate, with lobes pubescent on the outer and hairy on the inner surface; petals twice the length of the sepals, obovate, and contracted into short claws; filaments and ovary glabrous; style slender and funnel-shaped at the apex.
Fruit ripens in late summer or early autumn; roundish or oblong, about one inch in length, borne on a short, stout stem, dark red or purplish; flesh subacid, well-flavored, clinging to the flattish or turgid stone which varies greatly in size, pointed at both ends, crested on the ventral edge and grooved on the other.
Prunus subcordata, the Pacific or Western plum, is an inhabitant of the region east of the Coast Range from southern Oregon to central California. It is so rarely found on the seacoast as to have escaped the attention of the early botanists and remained unknown until the middle of the Nineteenth Century, when Hartweg, working in the interior of California, brought the plant to notice. This wild plum is not common except in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in northern California and southern Oregon, where it often forms thickets of small trees along streams, thriving in fresh, fertile, sandy soils, in canons, on hillsides or in the forests of yellow pine which are found in this region. Hammond[124] writes of it growing here as usually a small tree but often seen as a shrub from four to five feet high. Of the frequency of the occurrence he says: “It often sets the whole countryside ablaze in the autumn, with the abundance of its scarlet and crimson colors, mingled, of course, with red and yellow, and garnished with a sprinkling of green.” Sandberg[125] reports having collected Prunus subcordata as far north and east as Nez Perces County, northern Idaho, in the Craig Mountains at an altitude of about 2,900 feet, but this report is based on an error in determination, the specimen collected by Sandberg being clearly a European species. The tree and the fruit vary greatly according to the locality.
This Subcordata plum is one of the standard food products of the aborigines in the region in which it grows, being eaten either raw or cooked; and it is sometimes dried in considerable quantities at the harvesting places and carried considerable distances to the Indian villages.[126] The trappers, the first men to enter the habitat of this plum, followed by the gold-seekers and ranchers, all knew and esteemed the fruit. The early settlers regarded it as the most useful of all the wild fruits of the Coast and attempts were made at an early date to domesticate it. Of these Wickson says:[127]
“In 1856 there was, on the Middle Yuba River, not far from Forest City, in Sierra County, a wayside establishment known as ‘Plum Valley Ranch,’ so-called from the great quantity of wild plums growing on and about the place. The plum by cultivation gave a more vigorous growth and larger fruit. Transplanted from the mountains into the valley they are found to ripen earlier. Transplanted from the mountains to a farm near the coast, in Del Norte County, they did not thrive. One variety, moved from the hills near Petaluma in 1858, was grown as an orchard tree for fifteen years, and improved both in growth and quality of fruit by cultivation.... Recently excellent results have been reported from the domestication of the native plum in Nevada County, and fruit shown at the State Fair of 1888 gave assurance that by cultivation and by selecting seedlings valuable varieties can be obtained. It is stated that in Sierra County the wild plum is the only plum which finds a market at good prices, and that cultivated gages, blue and egg plums scarcely pay for gathering. The wild plum makes delicious preserves.”
In its typical form Prunus subcordata is a shrub and is often only a low bush but under the most favorable conditions it attains the dimension and shape of a small tree. In its roundish, roughish leaves it so closely resembles the Old World types of plums that it becomes the nearest approach to them to be found among our American species. But in the globular, red or purple subacid fruit it betrays its affinity to the American plums, as it does also in the flat, sometimes turgid, smooth stone to which the flesh tenaciously clings. The flowers are white, fading to rose and borne abundantly, making the plant an attractive ornamental in blooming time as it is also in the autumn when the foliage turns to brilliant red, scarlet or crimson with touches of yellow. The fruit is sometimes so poor in quality as to be inedible but on the other hand is sometimes quite equal to some of the cultivated plums, especially in its botanical variety, Kelloggii.
That the fruit is capable of improvement by the selection of seedling varieties and useful in hybridizing with other species can hardly be doubted. Luther Burbank, under date of December 6, 1909, writes in this regard as follows:
“The Prunus subcordata, as it grows wild, bears very heavily even on bushes two and three feet in height, bending the bushes flat on the ground when the fruit is ripe. This is a very beautiful sight. The wild ones, although almost invariably bright red and spherical, are sometimes, though rarely found, yellow. When the seed of the yellow fruit is planted a certain portion of red ones are produced, but all, practically, of the same size and quality as the original. The trees of Subcordata in the wild state are greatly variable in growth, generally much more so than in the fruit. The fruit, however, varies much in quality, but it is promiscuously gathered by those living in the vicinity of the plum grounds and considered most excellent for cooking. I commenced working on this species about twenty-two years ago and have not carried it on as extensively as with the Maritima, as I found it subject to plum-pockets, but by very careful selection I have produced most magnificent plums, oval in form or round, sweet as honey or sweet as the French Prune, greatly enlarged in size, tree improved in growth and enormously productive, the different varieties ripening through a long season. Most of these are light and dark red. Some of them, when cooked, are far superior to cranberries, having the exact delicious flavor so much liked in this fruit, and the same color.
“From the crosses of Subcordata with the Americana, Nigra, Triflora and other species, some of the most beautiful and highest flavored fruits which I have ever seen have been produced. These vary in color from almost pure white to light yellow, transparent flesh color, pink, light crimson, scarlet, dark crimson and purple; in form round, egg-shaped or elongated-oval; trees both upright and weeping, enormously productive, and in one or two cases the fruit, by hundreds of experts, has been pronounced the best plum in flavor of any in existence. Most of these selections are extremely productive.”
Wickson[128] reports that the roots of Subcordata have been used more or less as stocks for other plums but show no marked advantages over the species commonly used for this purpose. Most of those who have experimented with it condemn it as a stock because it dwarfs the cion and suckers badly.
Prunus oregana Greene[129] is from its description an interesting plum of which, however, it has been impossible to secure a glimpse even of herbarium material and of which we can therefore, only publish Greene’s description as follows:
“Evidently allied to P. subcordata, but leaves little more than an inch long, subcoriaceous, pubescent on both faces, in outline oval or broadly elliptic, never subcordate, commonly acutish at both ends, serrulate; flowers unknown; fruits in pairs or threes, on pedicels one-half inch long or more, densely tomentose when very young, more thinly so, yet distinctly tomentulose when half-grown.
“Known only from specimens collected on the Yanex Indian reservation in southeastern Oregon, by Mrs. Austin, in 1893; and a most remarkable species, as connecting true Prunus with Amygdalus. But that it is a plum and not an almond is evident.”
Without any first-hand knowledge of this species it is thought best to consider it only under the allied species, Prunus subcordata.
1. Lemmon Pittonia 2:67. 1890. 2. Wickson Calif. Fr. Ed. 2:51. 1891. 3. Greene Fl. Francis 1:50. 1891. 4. Bailey Cyc. Am. Hort. 1448. 1901.
Prunus subcordata kelloggii, named in honor of Dr. Albert Kellogg, an early explorer and settler in California, is distinguished from the species in being a somewhat taller and more slender plant.[130] The branches and bark are of a characteristic ash-gray, so distinct in color from Prunus subcordata that this is often called the “Gray-branch” plum. The leaves are orbicular or elliptical, not cordate, cuneate at the base and nearly glabrous. The fruit is bright yellow instead of red and larger than that of the species, being an inch or more in diameter with a more nearly free stone. This plum inhabits the region of Mount Shasta where it has been known since the time of the early gold diggers, attracting more attention as a food, and promising more for the cultivator than Subcordata. Botanists seem to have given this plum comparatively little attention and careful study may give it specific rank. Locally, and now somewhat in the trade, it is known as the Sisson plum, after a Mr. Sisson, living near Mount Shasta, who has brought it to notice. At present the Kelloggii seems to be the branch of promise for the improvement of the wild plums of the western coast.
1. Elliott Sk. Bot. S. C. and Ga. 1:541. 1821. 2. Sargent 10th Cen. U. S. 9:67. 1883. 3. Ibid. Sil. N. Am. 4:33. Pl. 155. 1892. 4. Waugh Plum Cult. 91. 1901. 5. Mohr Cont. U. S. Nat. Herb. 6:551. 1901.
Cerasus umbellata. 6. Torrey and Gray Fl. N. Am. 1:409. 1840.
Tree low, sometimes a shrub, seldom over twenty feet in height; trunk short, usually crooked, attaining a thickness of ten inches; bark dark brown and scaly; branches spreading, slender, twiggy but spineless; branchlets at first pubescent but becoming glabrous, bright red turning dark brown the second year; lenticels few, oblong, yellowish.
Leaves oblong-ovate, or oblong-obovate to oblong, thin and membranaceous, acute at the apex but usually obtuse or cordate at the base; margins closely and evenly serrate with glandular teeth, upper surface dark green and glabrous, lower surface pale green and more or less pubescent; petioles stout, glabrous or sometimes pubescent; glands usually two, sometimes wanting, large, dark, at the base of the leaf; stipules lanceolate, small, caducous.
Flowers medium in size, appearing before and with the leaves; usually borne in four-flowered umbels; calyx-tube obconic, its lobes entire, outer surface glabrous or pubescent, the inner densely tomentose; petals white, orbicular, clawed.
Fruit matures in late summer; one-half inch in diameter, nearly round, without cavity or suture, borne on a slender pedicel three-quarters inch long, orange-red or bright red to purple or nearly black, covered with a thin bloom; skin thick and tough; flesh coarse, thick, acid or astringent, scarcely edible; stone nearly free, flattened, acute at both ends, rugose, thin-walled.
Prunus umbellata, the Sloe, Black Sloe or Hog Plum, Oldfield, and sometimes Chickasaw and Bullace of the South, is found along the seaboard from South Carolina to central Florida, thence westward to the Gulf and along its shores to Texas. Inland it is found as far north as middle Georgia,[131] Alabama and Mississippi and southern Arkansas. Though very common in localities in the region outlined, there are vast areas of this territory in which it is scarcely found, preferring bottom lands of rivers and rich, moist soils in some instances and dry, sandy copses, open woods and borders of fields in others. In flower and fruit it is a handsome and conspicuous plant, yet, as the references show, the early botanists did not describe it, and even Elliott, who gave it its name, in 1821, passed it by with a scant description. Its neglect by the several famous botanists of the Eighteenth Century who explored this region must be attributed to their confusing it with Prunus angustifolia and Prunus maritima, one or the other of which is found in most of the region, and to the idiosyncrasies of the distribution of Prunus umbellata.
The fruit of this species is unfit for dessert purposes but is commonly gathered for culinary use and sometimes is offered for sale in the markets of the South, being highly esteemed for pies, jams and jellies. There appear to have been no efforts made to domesticate it, however, and since it is quite inferior in fruit-characters to others of the native plums, efforts to that end are probably not worth while.
1. Sargent Sil. N. Am. 13:21. 1902.
Prunus injucunda. 2. Small Torrey Bot. Club Bul. 25:149. 1898. 3. Mohr Ibid. 26:118. 1899. 4. Ibid. Cont. U. S. Nat. Herb. 6:552. 1901. 5. Bailey Cyc. Am. Hort. 1449. 1901.
Tree low, seldom twenty feet in height, often a straggling shrub; trunk short, crooked, attaining a diameter of eight inches; bark dark brown, nearly black; branches slender, rigid, twiggy and somewhat spiny; branchlets velvety becoming purplish and finally a dull gray; lenticels few, yellowish.
Leaves oblong-ovate to obovate, taper-pointed at the apex and obtuse or rounded at the base, margins closely and finely toothed, thin in texture; upper surface yellowish-green, wrinkled and more or less pubescent, lower surface densely pubescent and with a prominent yellowish midrib and rather prominent lateral veins; petioles stout, one-half inch in length, very pubescent; stipules lanceolate, small, caducous.
Flowers medium in size or small, usually appearing before the leaves; in four or five-flowered sub-sessile umbels; pedicels slender, three-quarters inch in length, very pubescent; calyx-tube obconic, tomentose, with erect, entire, sharply pointed, ciliate, tomentose lobes; petals white, orbicular, clawed; filaments and base of pistil tomentose.
Fruit maturing in late summer, three-quarters inch long, oblong, with but a trace of cavity and suture, dark purple with light bloom; flesh thin, sour and very astringent; skin thick, tough; scarcely edible; stone ovoid, long, flat, roughish, pointed at both ends with a groove on one edge and a grooved ridge on the other.
In 1898 Small described Prunus injucunda as a new species from what had hitherto been considered a part of Prunus umbellata. Sargent, whom we follow, gives it as a botanical variety of Prunus umbellata. Small says that the two differ as follows: Prunus injucunda has “a more rigid habit and the foliage, including the branchlets, is velvety tomentose. In place of the sub-globose drupe of Prunus umbellata we find an oblong fruit of an extremely bitter taste. The stone is correspondingly lengthened.” To these differences may be added tomentose or pubescent leaves, hairy umbels, and tomentose calyx and pistil, as characters not found in Prunus umbellata though there are occasional pubescent individuals in the species.
Small first collected Prunus injucunda in sandy soil in the granite districts about the base of Little Stone Mountain, Georgia, and reports it as occurring about Stone Mountain. Mohr reports the plant on rocky summits and among the sandstone cliffs of Alpine Mountain, Talladego County, Alabama, as a low, unsightly shrub, four feet in height, with short, straggling branches. The wild fruit is seldom fit for domestic use and with so much better material in other species the fruit-grower can hardly afford to spend time in an attempt to domesticate this one.
1. Beadle Bilt. Bot. Stud. 1:162. 1902. 2. Britton and Brown N. Am. Trees 489. 1908.
Tree small, maximum height twenty-five feet; bark dark brown or reddish-gray; branches spreading or ascending, usually unarmed; branchlets glabrous, glaucous; leaves thin, elliptic, oblong-lanceolate, sometimes ovate or obovate, apex acute or acuminate, base narrow or rounded, margin sharply serrate; petioles less than one-half inch, densely pubescent, with two glands at or on the base of the leaf; upper surface bright green, finely pubescent, lower surface paler, also pubescent and with a prominent midrib and veins.
Flowers of medium size, appearing before the leaves; borne in sub-sessile, two to six-flowered umbels; calyx-tube obconic, smooth, its lobes triangular, pubescent on the outer and velvety on the inner surface; petals white, obovate, clawed; pedicels slender, smooth, three-quarters inch long.
Fruit ripening in mid-summer; over one-half inch in length, oblong, dark purple with a heavy bloom; stone ovoid or oval, flattened, nearly one-half inch long, pointed at both ends especially at the apex, and crested on one edge.
Prunus mitis is a newly named species from Alabama, common in dry soils in the regions where it is found wild. The species has many characters in common with Prunus umbellata to which it is so closely related that it is difficult to distinguish the two in herbarium specimens. Although nothing is yet known of its horticultural possibilities the apparent relationship does not indicate much value in the plum for the cultivator.
1. Sargent Bot. Gaz. 33:108. 1902. 2. Ibid. Sil. N. Am. 13:23, Pl. 632. 1902.
Tree from twenty to twenty-five feet in height; trunk tall, eighteen or twenty inches in diameter; bark light brown, reddish, thick, with flat ridges and plate-like scales; branches spreading, forming an open symmetrical head; branchlets slender, at first light green and tomentose becoming glabrous, light brownish and lustrous, and the second year much darker; lenticels small, dark, scattered.
Leaves oblong to obovate, apex acute and sharp-pointed, base rounded or cuneate, margin finely serrate with incurved, glandular teeth, in texture thick and firm; upper surface glabrous, dark yellow-green, lower surface pubescent, pale green; petioles stout, tomentose or pubescent, short, eglandular or with two stalked, dark glands at the apex; stipules acicular, often bright red, small.
Flowers three-quarters inch across, appearing before and with the leaves; borne in two or three-flowered umbels, on slender, glabrous pedicels; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, hairy above, the lobes acute, entire, villose on the outer, tomentose on the inner surface; petals oblong-obovate with a short claw at the base; filaments and pistils glabrous.
Fruit maturing very late; short-oblong to sub-globose, one-third to one-half inch in length, red, yellow, purple, black or blue; skin tough and thick; flesh thick and acid; stone adhering to the flesh, ovoid, more or less compressed, very rugose, ridged on the ventral and grooved on the dorsal suture, acute at the apex, rounded at the base.
Prunus tarda, locally known as the Sloe, as are many other plums, was named from specimens collected in 1901 near Marshall, Texas, by Sargent and others. Sargent, to whom is due what field knowledge we have of the plant, gives its range from where found in Texas to western Louisiana and southern Arkansas. He says that it resembles and is often confounded with Prunus umbellata but may be distinguished from it by its bark, which differs from that of any other American plum tree, being more like that of the chinquapin chestnut with which it grows; by the pubescence on the leaves, not usually found on those of Prunus umbellata; and by its variously colored fruit which ripens much later than that of other plums in the region. From what has been published in regard to the species one gathers little in regard to its horticultural possibilities though the statements that it bears great quantities of fruit and is used locally for culinary purposes indicate that it may have some value under cultivation.
1. Marshall Arb. Am. 111. 1785. 2. Torrey and Gray Fl. N. Am. 1:407. 1840. 3. Loudon Arb. Fr. Brit. 2:705. 1844. 4. Sargent 10th Cen. U. S. 9:66. 1883. 5. Watson and Coulter Gray’s Man. Ed. 6:152. 1889 (in part). 6. Gray For. Trees N. A. 47, Pl. 1891. 7. Sargent Sil. N. Am. 4:25, Pl. 152. 1892. 8. Mohr Cont. U. S. Nat. Herb. 6:551. 1901.
P. chicasa. 9. Michaux[132] Fl. Bor. Am. 1:284. 1803. 10. Nuttall Gen. N. Am. Pl. 1:302. 1818. 11. Elliott Sk. Bot. S. C. and Ga. 1:542. 1821. 12. Hall Pl. Texas 9. 1873. 13. Ridgway Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 65. 1882. 14. Chapman Fl. Sou. U. S. 131. 1897.
Plant seldom becoming a true tree, usually, however, forming a small but distinct trunk with a twiggy, bushy top; bark thin, dark reddish-brown, slightly furrowed or roughened, scaly; branches slender, usually zigzag with long, thin thorns or spine-like branchlets; branchlets slender, zigzag, glabrous, glossy, bright red; lenticels few, scattered, yellowish, raised.
Winter-buds small, obtuse, free, brownish; leaves folded upward, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, pointed at both ends, thin, membranaceous, margins closely and finely serrate with minute teeth, tipped with glands; upper surface glabrous, lustrous, bright green, lower surface glabrous or pubescent in the axils of the veins, dull, two-thirds inch wide and from one to two inches long; petioles one-half inch long, slender, glabrous or tomentose, bright red with two red glands near or on the base of the leaf; stipules one-half inch long, narrow-lobed, serrate with gland-tipped teeth.
Flowers appearing with or before the leaves, small, less than one-half inch across, very numerous; umbels sub-sessile, two to four-flowered, from lateral spurs or buds; pedicels glabrous, slender, one-half inch in length; calyx-tube campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes obtuse, glabrous outside, margins ciliate, inner surface pubescent, reflexed; petals creamy in the bud, obovate, apex rounded, narrowing into a claw at the base; filaments and pistils glabrous, the latter shorter than the stamens.
Fruit ripening early; spherical or ovoid, three-quarters inch in diameter, bright red, sometimes yellow, glossy, with little or no bloom; dots numerous, very conspicuous; skin thin; flesh tender, juicy, yellow, subacid; quality rather poor; stone small, clinging, ovoid, turgid, slightly roughened, cherry-like, edges rounded, the dorsal one grooved.
The original home of Prunus angustifolia is not known. The inference is left in most of the botanies that the species is not indigenous in the region east of the Mississippi, but that it was brought by the aborigines from the southwestern section of the Mississippi Valley or possibly the southern Rocky Mountains or Mexico. The chief reason for the belief that it does not belong where it now grows is the fact that it is usually found near human habitations and on the margins of fields and as it was known to have been cultivated by the Indians,[133] it is supposed to have escaped from their semi-cultivated plantations. Bailey[134] dissents from the current view, holding that the plant behaves like a true native in regions where he has known it, Maryland in particular. It seems to the writer that Bartram’s supposition, given in the foot-note below, has been followed too closely. A careful study of recent botanical works indicates that the species is indigenous to the southeastern United States.
Whatever the original habitat may have been it is now found in the wild state from southern Delaware to Florida and westward to the Panhandle of Texas and southern Oklahoma. It is usually found on rich soils but is found as well in worn-out fields and pastures, most often in thickets of small trees or thorny shrubs or scraggly bushes, producing under the latter conditions a small fruit so like cherries as to give it the name in some localities “Mountain Cherry” (Maryland), and in others “Wild Cherry” (Louisiana).
There has been much confusion in regard to Prunus angustifolia. The older botanists very generally mistook this species for Michaux’s Prunus chicasa which, as stated in the foot-note on page 82, is almost certainly not the plum under discussion. Practically all horticulturists ascribe to Prunus angustifolia a great number of cultivated varieties which cannot by any possibility belong here; indeed, it is doubtful if the species is cultivated at all other than very locally, and still more doubtful as to whether, as compared with other native plums, it is worth growing. In spite of this confusion the species is one of the most distinct of plums, and its characters are comparatively constant throughout the range. A careful reading of Humphrey Marshall’s description of Prunus angustifolia by subsequent botanists might have helped to keep this plum in its place. Marshall wrote of it:
“Prunus angustifolia. Chicasaw Plumb. This is scarcely of so large a growth as the former [P. americana], but rising with a stiff, shrubby stalk, dividing into many branches, which are garnished with smooth, lance-shaped leaves, much smaller and narrower than the first kind [P. americana], a little waved on their edges, marked with very fine, slight, coloured serratures, and of an equal shining green colour, on both sides. The blossoms generally come out very thick and are succeeded by oval, or often somewhat egg-shaped fruit, with a very thin skin, and soft, sweet pulp. There are varieties of this with yellow and crimson coloured fruit. These being natives of the Southern states, are somewhat impatient of much cold.”
The tree-characters given by Marshall are hardly those of the plum under cultivation which we have been calling Prunus angustifolia, and his statement that the species is “impatient of much cold” at once separates the cultivated “Angustifolias” from the true species. We shall contrast the tree-characters of the two groups of plums in the discussion of Prunus munsoniana. Of the hardiness of the two it may be said that the cultivated varieties which we have placed in the last named species are for the most part hardy as far north as Burlington, Vermont, while the true Prunus angustifolia cannot be grown to fruiting as far north as Geneva, New York. Its behavior, too, on the northern limit of its range, and the fact that it did not follow the aborigines northward as it seems to have followed them from place to place within its range, show that Prunus angustifolia belongs in the southern states.
This plum was well known by the early colonists of Virginia and southward. John Smith in Virginia, in 1607-9, and Strachey, writing a few years later, saw “cherries much like a damoizm, but for their taste and cullour we called them cherries.” Beverly in his History of Virginia, written in 1822, speaks of two sorts of plums, “the black and the Murrey Plum, both of which are small and have much the same relish with the Damasine”; the latter was probably the Angustifolia. Lawson in his History of Carolina speaks of several plums,[135] one of which, the Indian plum, must have been the fruit of the present discussion. Bruce[136] quotes a letter from William Fitzhugh, written in 1686, in which the latter speaks of the “Indian Cherry,” meaning of course, this plum; for it still passes under the same name.
Of the horticultural possibilities of Prunus angustifolia, little can be said from this Station as the trees cannot be grown here. But since the species has been so long known, and is so near at hand to fruit-growers, without more of its offspring coming under cultivation, it is not likely that it may be counted upon to bring forth much in the future for the orchard. Such trees and fruits of this species as the writer has seen are not at all promising for the cultivator.
1. Waugh Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 12:239. 1899. 2. Bailey Cyc. Am. Hort. 1450 fig. 1901.
P. watsoni. 3. Sargent Gar. and For. 7:134, fig. 1894. 4. Waugh Bot. Gaz. 26:53. 1898. 5. Bailey Ev. Nat. Fr. 218. 1898.
Shrub four to ten feet high; branches slender, short-jointed, zigzag, reddish-brown; branchlets at first bright red and lustrous, later becoming brownish-red or sometimes ashy-gray; lenticels few and light-colored; leaves small, ovate, apex acute, base rounded or cuneate, margins finely crenulate; upper surface glabrous, shining, lower surface paler, glabrous; petioles reddish, one-half inch in length, biglandular at the apex.
Flowers in fascicles of two to four, borne with or before the leaves and in great abundance; calyx cup-shaped, the lobes acute, eglandular, ciliate on the margins, pubescent on the inner surface; petals white, obovate, contracted into a claw at the base; filaments glabrous, anthers reddish, style slender, exserted; pedicels one-quarter inch long.
Fruit two-thirds inch in diameter, globose, sometimes oblong, orange-red, bloomless, handsome; skin thin, rather tender; flesh yellow, juicy, tender, pleasant flavor; of comparatively high quality; stone somewhat turgid, compressed at the apex, thick-walled, rounded on the ventral and sometimes on the dorsal suture.
Prunus angustifolia watsoni is the Sand plum of the plains, being an inhabitant of southern and southeastern Nebraska and central and western Kansas and possibly passing into western Oklahoma. It is usually found along the banks of streams and rivers where it often forms shrubby thickets. The wild plums are held in high esteem for dessert and culinary purposes, becoming a commercial product in parts of the region in which they grow, and are occasionally transplanted to the garden or orchard. From such transplantings a half dozen varieties have arisen. The productiveness, hardiness to heat and cold and the size and quality of the fruits should attract plum-growers in the region of its habitat and experimenters elsewhere as well. Waugh[138] gives the following interesting sketch of the use to which this plum has been put in Kansas:
“Early settlers in Kansas, before their own orchard plantings came into bearing, used to find the sand plums well worth their attention. In July and August everybody for fifty miles back from the Arkansas sand hills used to flock thither to pick, and it was an improvident or an unlucky family which came off with less than four or five bushels to can for winter. Whole wagon loads of fruit were often secured, and were sometimes offered for sale in neighboring towns.
“The fruit gathered from the wild trees was of remarkably fine quality, considering the conditions under which it grew. The plums were quite uniformly large—I would say from memory that they often reached three-fourths of an inch to an inch in diameter. They were thin-skinned and of good flavor, not having the unpleasant astringency of the wild Americana plums, which were also sometimes gathered. They were excellent for canning and made the finest of jelly.
“Naturally, the settlers who went every year to the sand hills for plums brought back trees to plant in the gardens they were opening. Almost every farm within the range mentioned above had a few or many of the dwarf trees growing. Some of these were fruitful and worth their room, but most of them have now died out, or are neglected and forgotten. This is because people have paid no attention to their selection, propagation and cultivation. Further than this, however, the sand plum has often failed signally to come up to its record when transferred to cultivation. It seems not to adapt itself readily to a wide diversity of soils and conditions.”
The sub-species is easily mistaken for the species; in herbarium specimens it is almost impossible to distinguish between them, but in general the Sand plum differs from Angustifolia in its dwarfer habit, shorter-jointed, zigzag, ashy-gray branches, smaller but thicker leaves, larger, thicker skinned and better flavored fruit which ripens later, and in a smaller and somewhat differently marked stone. In distinguishing the two groups some allowance must be made for the adaptability of plums to different environments.
Plant a small tree, attaining a height of twenty-five feet; trunk small but well-defined; branches spreading, bushy, sometimes armed with spinescent branchlets; young wood slender, more or less zigzag, usually glabrous, glossy, reddish but approaching a chestnut-brown; lenticels few, scattered, yellowish, raised.
Leaves oblong, oval-lanceolate or rarely slightly obovate-lanceolate, one and one-fifth to two and one-fifth inches long, three-quarters to one inch broad, gradually narrowed at the base, acute at the apex; margins very minutely glandular-serrate; upper surface glabrous and somewhat lustrous; lower surface paler, glabrous or sparingly hairy along the midrib and in the axils of the lateral veins; petioles slender, usually reddish, about one-half inch long, pubescent along the upper side, eglandular or sometimes with one or two glands at the apex; stipules small, linear and glandular-dentate.
Flowers appearing from early in March and before the leaves in the South, to the middle of April and with the leaves in the North, in dried specimens about one-half inch broad; pedicels three-eighths to one-half inch long, glabrous; calyx campanulate, the tube glabrous; calyx-lobes usually shorter than the tube, oblong and obtuse, glabrous on the outer surface, glabrous or sometimes sparingly pubescent on the inner, the margin ciliate, eglandular; petals obovate, gradually narrowed toward the base, erose or entire toward the apex.
Fruit globose or sub-globose, varying from red to yellow, usually with a light bloom; stone about one-half inch long, two-fifths inch broad, turgid, ovoid to elliptic-oblong, obscurely pointed at the apex or sometimes slightly obtuse, truncate or obliquely truncate at the base, grooved on the dorsal edge, ventral edge with a narrow, thickened and slightly grooved wing, the surfaces irregularly roughened.
Yellow Transparent may be considered a typical variety. Type specimens in the Economic Collection of the Department of Agriculture were collected at the Eastern Shore Nurseries of J. W. Kerr, Denton, Maryland, (flowers) I. Tidestrom, April, 1910; (foliage and fruit) P. L. Ricker No. 2933, June 29, 1909.
In the wild, Prunus angustifolia varians forms dense thickets, the larger specimens attaining a height of ten or twelve feet. When budded and grown in the orchard it assumes the form of a small tree with well defined trunk and spreading branches, sometimes armed with rather slender spinescent branchlets. It is distinguished from the species by its usually more robust habit, by its having the young twigs less reddish and approaching a chestnut-brown in color, rather longer leaves, longer pediceled flowers, and by the stone in most cases being more pointed at the apex. Usually in more fertile soil than the species, it occurs locally from southern Oklahoma through eastern Texas southward possibly to the Colorado River, and probably westward to the Panhandle region. As yet, however, its distribution is not well defined.
Nearly all of the early ripening horticultural varieties previously referred to Prunus angustifolia belong to Prunus angustifolia varians. The fruit of the sub-species appears to be superior to that of the species though scarcely equal to that of the other southern plums now cultivated. Hybrids between this form and Prunus munsoniana undoubtedly occur freely both in the wild state and under cultivation. The varieties Eagle and El Paso have probably originated in this way. Nearly all of the plums belonging to this species, some twenty in all, are tender to cold, none, so far as is known, succeeding in the North. African, Cluck, Jennie Lucas and Yellow Transparent may be named as representative varieties.
PRUNUS MUNSONIANA