PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 211 



now in one species, I consider them actually distinct, and 

 content myself with supposing a descent, which for the 

 rest it would not be easy to prove. 



Cultivated Plums. 



Pliny ^ speaks of the immense quantity of plums 

 known in his time : ingens turba prunorum. Horti- 

 culturists now number more than three hundred. Some 

 botanists have tried to attribute these to distinct wild 

 species, but they have not always agreed, and judging from 

 the specific names especially they seem to have had very 

 different ideas. This diversity is on two heads ; first as 

 to the descent of a given cultivated variety, and secondly 

 as to the distinction of the wild forms into species or 

 varieties. 



I do not pretend to classify the innumerable culti- 

 vated forms, and I think that labour useless when dealing 

 with the question of geographical origin, for the differ- 

 ences lie principally in the shape, size, colour, and taste 

 of the fruit, in characters, that is to say, which it has 

 been the interest of horticulturists to cultivate when 

 they occur, and even to create as far as it was in their 

 power to do so. It is better to insist upon the distinction 

 of the forms observed in a wild state,' especially upon 

 those from which man derives no advantage, and which 

 have probably remained as they were before the existence 

 of gardens. 



It is probably only for about thirty years that 

 botanists have given really comparative characters for 

 the three species or varieties which exist in nature.^ 

 They may be summed up as follows : — 



Frunus domestica, Linnseus. Tree or tall shrub, with- 

 out thorns ; young branches glabrous ; flowers appearing 

 with the leaves, their peduncles usually downy; fruit 

 pendulous, ovoid and of a sweet flavour. 



Frunus insititia, Linnaeus. Tree or tall shrub, with- 

 out thorns ; young shoots covered with a velvet down ; 

 flowers appearing with the leaves, with peduncles covered 



^ Bist., lib. 15, c. 13. 



^ Koch, 8yn. Fl. Germ., edit. 2, p. 228 ; Cosson and Germain, Flore 

 des Environs de Paris, i. p. 165. 



