68 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



than the Asiatic parent. Since these plums differ so among themselves 

 it is doubtful if more can be said as to the characters of Waugh's group 

 than to mention the above resemblance. Some thirty or more varieties fall 

 into this group of which America, Golden, Juicy, Ruby, Waugh and Gonzales 



are chief. 



PRUNUS HORTULANA MINERI Bailey 

 I. Bailey Cornell Sta. Bui. 38:23. 1S92. 2. Waugh Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 10:103. 1S97. 3. Britton 

 and Brown 2:247. 1897. 



It is impossible from present knowledge to say certainly whether the 

 Miner-Hke plums put by Bailey into a botanical sub-division of Prunus 

 hortulana are extreme variations of the species or, as Bailey in his last 

 accounts and Waugh at all times have supposed, are hybrids between 

 Prunus hortulana and Prunus americana. It is certain that all of these 

 plums are intermediate in some characters between the two species named ; 

 neither botanists nor pomologists can agree as to whether certain varieties 

 belong to the one or the other botanical division. There are, however, 

 in several herbaria, specimens from the wild, and from different localities, 

 that indicate that there is a distinct plum toward the northern limit of 

 the range of Prunus hortulana which, if a natural hybrid, is of so ancient 

 hybridity that the plants now come measurably true to type. The chief 

 representatives of the Miner-like plums under cultivation, as Miner, Forest 

 Rose, Prairie Flower and Clinton, are so like these wild plimis as to lead 

 the writer to believe that Bailey's botanical sub-division is justified and 

 is worth contintdng even though a considerable ntmiber of the varieties 

 now put with Miner, most of which have originated under cultivation, are 

 hybrids and that the wild plums may have come from natural hybrids of 

 more or less remote time. 



The sub-species differs from the species in having shorter, stiffer, less 

 graceful branches; leaves smaller, thicker, rougher and of a bluish -green 

 cast; the blossoms of the two are much the same but those of the sub- 

 species open a few days earlier; the fruits of the sub-species are larger 

 than those of the species, lighter red, have more bloom, are less firm in 

 texture, ripen earlier, yet later than those of any other species, and 

 are quite different in flavor, having more nearly the taste of the fruit of 

 Prunus americana; the stones, as well as the fruits, are very different, 

 being in the sub-species larger, broader, flatter, smoother and less pointed. 

 The differences in fruit and stone, and to some extent in the leaves, can 

 be seen if the color-plates of Forest Rose and Wayland be compared. 



