THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 8l 



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 re- 

 lationshii^ does not indicate much value in the pkxm for the cultivator. 



17. PRUNUS TARDA Sargent 

 1. Sargent Bot. Gaz. 33:108. 1902. 2. Ibid. Sil. N. Ant. 13:23, PI. 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 Lotiisiana 

 and southern Arkansas. He says that it resembles and is often confotmded 

 with Prunus umbellata but may be distingtiished 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 thottgh the 



