CHICKASAW PLUMS 193 



shining green colour, on both sides. The blossoms 

 generally come out very thick, and are succeeded 

 by oval, or often somewhat egg-shaped fruit, with 

 a very thin skin, and soft, sweet pulp. There are 

 varieties of this with yellow and crimson coloured 

 fruit. These being natives of the Southern states, 

 are somewhat impatient of much cold." It was later 

 described by Michaux as Primus Chicasa* It is also 

 undoubtedly the plant intended by Rafmesque, when 

 he described Prunus stenopliyllus in his "Florula 

 Ludoviciana," in 1817. In a wild state the little trees 

 or bushes are thorny, and the thorns persist in some 

 of the cultivated varieties. It grows wild, often in 

 dense thickets, from southern Delaware to Florida, 

 and westward to Kansas and Texas. It is commonly 

 stated in the books that the Chickasaw plum is not 

 native to the Atlantic states, and some suppose that 

 it was introduced into the United States from 

 countries to the south of us. I have been unable 

 to find sufficient reasons for these opinions, and I 

 believe that the species is native to the Southeastern 

 states. In Maryland, as I have seen it, it behaves 

 like an indigenous plant, and the people regard it 

 as a true native. The small, acerb fruit of the 

 thorny and scraggly wild bushes is known in Mary- 

 land as "mountain cherry." 



One of the first persons to call attention to the 

 horticultural possibilities of the Chickasaw plum 



*The specimens in Michaux's herbarium, at Paris, are Prunus hortulana, not 

 the plant we have taken to be P. angustifolia ; but they are marked with an 

 interrogation point, and they may not be the plant which he meant to designate. 

 His Prunus hyemalis is P. Americana ; his P. tphaerocarpa is P. maritima. 

 Of his Cerasus borealis there are two things on the sheet, but they are both forms 

 of P. hortulana. 



