The Cultivated Native Plums and Cheekies. 47 



States. The varieties wMoh are most highly prized are Cheney, 

 Deep Creek, De Soto, Forest Garden, Itaska, Louisa, Purple, Yosem- 

 ite, Qualj:er, Eollingstone, Weaver and Wolf. 



B. The Wild Goose Group. — (Prunus hortulana, L. H. 

 Bailey, Garden and Forest, v. 90 [1892]) . This, perhaps the most 

 important group of native plums, includes varieties characterized 

 by strong wide-spread growth and mostly smooth twiigs, a 

 firm, juicy, bright-colored, thin-skinned fruit w'hich is never 

 flattened, a clinging turgid comparatively small rough istone which 

 is sometimes prolonged at the ends but is never conspicuously 

 ^'ing-margined, and by comparatively thin and firm shining, 

 smooth, flat, more or less peach-like, ovate-lanceolate or ovate 

 long-pointed leaves which are mostly closely and obtusely glandu- 

 lar-serrate and the stalks of which are iLsually glandular. Prunus 

 horhilana in the wild state appears to follow the Mississippi river 

 from northern Illinois to Arkansas, in its middle region ranging 

 so far ea«t as eastern Kentucky an,d Tennessee and possibly to 

 Maryland, and in the southwest spreading over Texas. 



This species does not appear to have been recogTiized by writers 

 upon the genus, although pomologists have long regarded the 

 varieties of it as distinct from P. Americana. As it has come 

 into prominent notice through the labors of horticulturists, I take 

 pleasure in re'cording the fact in the name hortulana. The varie- 

 ties are intermediate between the Americana and Chickasaw 

 groups, while the Miner group, which I refer provisionally to this 

 species, is anomalous in its characters. The fruits lack entirely 

 the didl-colored, compres.sed. thick-skinned and meaty characters 

 of the Americanas; and approach very closely to the Chickasaws. 

 They are usually covered with a thin bloom and are more or less 

 marked by small spots. They are variable in period of ripening, 

 there being a difference of no less than two months between the 

 seasons of some of the cultivated varieties. In color they range 

 from the most vivid crimson to pure golden yellow. The botani- 

 cal features of the species are not yet well determined, and it is 

 not impossible that more than one species is confounded in it. 

 Some of the gross features of the species are well illustrated in 

 Fig. 3. 



