210 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



India. The word was early applied to a small plum 

 grown in Europe, probably because of some resemblance 

 in size or other characteristics to the myrobalans of 

 commerce. This plum has had a curious history. The 

 first undoubted reference to it which I know is in Clu- 

 sius' Rariorum Plantarum Historia, 1601. Clusius 

 gives a good figure of it, but says that it was not gen- 

 erally known. Some people thought that it came origi- 

 nally from Constantinople, and others that it came 

 from Gaul. Clusius leans toward the latter view. He 

 calls it the rayrobalan plum, but does not know the 

 origin of the name. For nearly two hundred years 

 after Clusius wrote, the fruit is described by various 

 authors in different parts of Europe, under the names 

 of myrobalan and cherry plum, during which time 

 doubts were cast upon its European origin. Thus 

 Tournefort in 1700 said that it came from North 

 America. In 1789 Ehrhart* described it as a distinct 

 species under the name Primus cerasifera, or "cherry- 

 bearing plum," and said distinctly that it was a native 

 of North America. Some thirty years before this time, 

 Linnffius had described it as Prunus domestica var. 

 myrobalan, and gave it a European origin. In 1812, 

 Loiseleur-Deslongchampst described it as Prunus myro- 

 balana, saying that it was supposed to be of American 

 origin. From that time until now the nativity of the 

 myrobalan plum has been uncertain, but European 

 writers have usually avoided the difficulty by referring 

 it to America ; and American botanists have for the 

 most part ignored it because it is a cultivated plant. 

 So it happens that this pretty fruit has fallen between 



*Beitrage zur Naturkunde, iv. 17. 



tNouveau Duhamel Traite des Arbres et Arbustes, v. 184, t. 57, Fig. 1. 



