252 



THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



The Princes in their nursery at Flushing, Long Island, New York, 

 about the year 1790, planted the pits of twenty-five quarts of the Green 

 Gage plum and from these produced, among others, a plum which they 

 called the White Gage. William R. Prince, in order to distinguish this 

 variety from the other Gage plums, changed the name to Prince's Imperial 

 Gage, now shortened to Imperial Gage. In 1852, the American Pomolo- 

 gical Society placed it on its catalog list of recommended fruits. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, open-topped, hardy, very productive; 

 branches ash-gray, smooth, with conspicuous, transverse cracks in the bark, with len- 

 ticels of medium size; branchlets slender, short, with intemodes above medium in 

 length, greenish-red changing to dark brownish-red, dull, sparingly pubescent throughout 

 the season, with small, inconspicuous lenticels; leaf -buds medium in size and length, 

 conical, appressed. 



Leaves folded upward, oval or slightly obovate, one and seven-eighths inches 

 wide, three and one-quarter inches long, thick; upper surface dark green, rugose, pubes- 

 cent, with a shallow groove on the midrib; lower surface yellowish-green, pubescent; 

 apex abruptly pointed, base acute, margin crenate, with small dark glands; petiole 

 one-half inch long, thick, pubescent, purplish-red along one side, glandless or with 

 one or two small, globose, yellowish-green glands usually on the stalk. 



Blooming season short; flowers one and one-eighth inches across, white; borne 

 on lateral buds and spurs, singly or in pairs; pedicels three-quarters inch long, pubes- 

 cent, greenish; calyx-tube green, campanulate, pubescent, with a swollen ring at the 

 base ; calyx-lobes above medium in width, obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, glandular- 

 serrate, slightly reflexed; petals broadly obovate, crenate, tapering below to short, 

 broad claws; anthers yellowish; filaments three-eighths inch long; pistil glabrous, 

 longer than the stamens; stigma large. 



Fruit intermediate in time and length of ripening season; one and nine-sixteenths 

 inches in diameter, oval or slightly ovate, compressed, halves equal; cavity very shallow 

 and narrow, abrupt; suture shallow, often a line; apex roundish or depressed; color 

 dull greenish-yellow, with obscure green streaks, mottled and sometimes faintly tinged 

 red on the sunny side, overspread with thick bloom; dots numerous, small, grayish, 

 obscure, clustered about the apex; stem three-quarters inch long, pubescent, adhering 

 well to the fruit; skin thin, tender, separating readily; flesh golden-yellow, juicy, firm 

 but tender, sweet, mild; good to very good; stone nearly free, one inch by five-eighths 

 inch in size, oval, flattened, with pitted surfaces; rather blunt at the base becoming 

 acute in the largest fruits, very blunt at the apex; ventral suture wide, ridged; dorsal 

 suture widely and deeply grooved. 



ITALIAN PRUNE 



PniuKs domcstica 

 I. Land. Hort. Soc. Cat. 152. 1831. 2. Prince Pom. Man. 2:78. 1832. 3. Kenrick Am. Orck. 

 262. 1832. 4. Manning Book of Fruits 106. 1838. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 214, 220. 1S56. 



