102 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 



tion of the species, and as subsequent botanists have not found the 

 wild form, and as Maximowicz, the most eminent botanist who has 

 recently given careful attention to these oriental floras, does not 

 identify the cultivated plum flora of Japan with Roxburgh's species, 

 I accepted for a time a name proposed by Professor Kizo Tamari, of 

 Tokio, P. hattan, and published it as the best means of classifying 

 our knowledge of these plums until the projjer botanical name should 

 be determined. In 1891 Professor Georgeson, of the Kansas Agri- 

 cultural College, who had spent some years in Japan in a critical 

 study of its products, definitely referred these plums to P. trijlora, of 

 Roxburgh, in an article in American Garden.* 



The types in cultivation vary much amongst themselves, but I have 

 been unable to make more than one si^ecies out of them, and the va- 

 riation is considerably less than in the families or groups of the do- 

 mestlca i^lums, which botanists are pretty well agreed have descended 

 from a single sj)ecific type. 



This plum is probably native to China. Roxburgh said that the 

 species was introduced ili Calcutta from China, and, upon this asser- 

 tion, Hemsley admits it to his recent "Flora of China," having "only 

 seen specimens cultivated in the Calcutta botanic garden." There is 

 no record, so far as I know, of its occurrence in a native state in Japan. 

 Professor Georgeson remarks that its cultivation is old in Japan and 

 that its origin is uncertain ; and Professor Sargent, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, who has recently made an exploration of the forests of Japan, 



* The following is Roxburgh's description of the species in his "Flora of 

 India," p. 501 (in this work the plant is called P. frifolia, probably through 

 inadvertence): "Unarmed, peduncles tern: leaves oblong, very finely gland- 

 serrate, smooth, in the bud equitant; drupes cordate. China, Hong-sum-li. 

 This elegant, very ramous, bushy shrub has been received from China into 

 our gardens in Bengal, where it blossoms in February, immediately after which 

 the luxurious foliage expands, and the fruit, which is about the size of the com- 

 mon plum, and nearly as palatable, ripens in May and June. Trunk in our 

 young cultivated trees, or rather shrubs, very short, soon dividing into numerous 

 branches and branchlets in all directions from diverging to erect. Bark on all 

 smooth. Leaves alternate in the bud equitant, petioled, recurved, oblong, taper- 

 ing equally at each end, very finely gland-serrate, considerably acuminate, 

 smooth, from two to four inches long and from one to two broad, in Bengal de- 

 ciduous about the close of the year. Stipules from the base of the petioles, en- 

 siform, gland-ciliate. Flowers very numerous, rather small and white, short 

 peduncled, regularly three from each bud, and there are generally two of those 

 buds in each of the old axils, with a leaf-bearing one in the center. Bractes, 

 the scales of the bud, cordate, scariose, and nearly caducous. Calyx, segments 

 five, oblong; margins glandular. Petals oval, short clawed, the length of the 

 peduncles. Filaments about thirty, shorter than the petals. Germ ovate, one- 

 celled, containing two ovula attached to the same side of the cell. Style the 

 length of the stamina. Stigma large. Drupe cordate, with an obtuse rising at 

 the apex, the size of the common plum, and of the same purple color, covered 

 with a similar bloom, grooved on one side. Pulp in large quantity, of a pale, 

 reddish yellow. Seed single, conform lo the nut. Integument single. Peri- 

 sperm a thin covering on one side only. Embryo inverse. Cotyledons unequal, 

 the small one doubled, and embraced by the larger, subequitant." 



