The Plum. 67 



When met with north of the Alps, as in English hedges, it 

 is probably naturalized from cultivation. " Bullace," like 

 sloe, is an old northern word, the etymology uncertain. 

 The third, P. domestica, is again a tall shrub or small 

 tree, the branches glabrous while young, and without 

 thorns. The flowers, contemporaneous with the leaves, 

 have downy peduncles; the fruit is pendulous, ovoid, 

 blackish-purple, and sweet. This form of the plant, 

 admittedly the principal one, is very doubtfully indigenous 

 in Europe. It occurs in woods and hedges, but has all 

 the appearance of a plant naturalized only in part. The 

 genuine native countries seem to be Anatolia, the region 

 to the south of the Caucasus, and northern Persia. 



Whether these three forms are to be regarded as 

 absolutely distinct or not, is an open question. The late 

 Mr. Bentham considered that the insititia and the 

 domestica may be only varieties of the spinosa, produced 

 by long cultivation. If so, the common sloe will have 

 been the original parent of everything of the plum kind. 

 The sloe, however, is not a plant that seems likely ever to 

 have invited cultivation. It is very different also from 

 the others in its root-habits. The probability is that all 

 our modern garden plums began with the insititia and the 

 domestica, and this either independently or by commix- 

 ture. The garden forms have, in every case, much larger 

 leaves and stronger shoots. They blossom later, the 

 flowers are larger, and the fruit, as well known in the 

 " e SS plum " and the " magnum bonum," attains a length 

 sometimes exceeding two inches. 



