THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 41 



pollinations will be surprised at the irregularity of results, nor at the 

 comparatively small number of fruits set. 



V. BOTANICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF CULTIVATED PLUMS. 



Within the past few years it has become customary among nurs- 

 erymen and fruit-growers to refer all cultivated plums to the botanical 

 species from which they are severally supposed to have sprung. This 

 method has many obvious advantages. The cultivated varieties of 

 each group have many important characters in common, so that the 

 fruit-grower soon finds himself able to form a very good and useful 

 estimate of any new variety as soon as he knows its botanic origin. 

 However, with the rapid introduction of new American varieties, the 

 botany of cultivated plums has become much more complicated. 

 Botanists have found it necessary to make new species of recently 

 discovered forms, and as varieties of these forms have been introduced 

 to cultivation horticulturists have had to keep pace with botanical 

 study in order to maintain an acquaintance with the fruits in their 

 gardens. In the foregoing tables the different varieties are referred 

 to their botanical parentage as accurately as could be done at this 

 time. For the most part the dispositions made of the several varieties 

 are those generally accepted. A few are questionable, but it was 

 thought better, in cases of doubt, still to place the doubtful variety 

 in the group to which it seems to belong, rather than to throw such 

 varieties into a mixture by themselves. 



When Mr. Andrew J. Downing wrote his "Fruit and Fruit Trees 

 of North America," he recognized only three species of plums as con- 

 cerned in the parentage of our cultivated varieties, namely : P. dom.es- 

 tica, the European plum ; P. amerlcana, the American red or yellow 

 plum ; and P. chicasa, the Chickasaw plum. Since then the classifi- 

 cation has been so much complicated, both botanically and horticul- 

 turally, that it requires some critical attention to understand the 

 subject. It is thought the more wise to take up here the botanical 

 classification of plums, because the limits of cross-pollination and the 

 lines of affinity among varieties may well be supposed to follow very 

 closely the true botanical boundaries of the parent species. The 

 natural relationships of the various groups are shown in the following : 



Conspectus of Cultivated and Native Plums. 

 Family Rosace.e; geaus Prunus. 

 FOREIGN SPECIES. 



P. domestical^. Common European Plum. Probably originally from Asia. 

 Flowers showy, white, more or less fascicled; leaves large, ovate or obovate, usu- 

 ally firm and thick in texture, very rugose, usually pubescent beneath, coarsely 

 serrate; shoots usually downy; fruit very various, of many shapes and flavors, 

 but mostly globular-pointed or oblong; the stone large and slightly roughened or 

 pitted. 



