456 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



Protea mellifera Thunb. Proteaceae. honey-flower, sugar-bush. 



South Africa. In the Cape Colony, a saccharine fluid is obtained from the flowers 

 called bush-syrup.* 



Pnmus americana Marsh. Rosaceae. American plum, august plum, goose plum, hog 



PLUM. RED PLUM. SLOE. YELLOW PhXTU. 



Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. This plirni is cultivated for its fruit and has a number 

 of varieties. It was, says Pickering,' from early times planted by the New England 

 Indians. Dtmng the ripening of the fruit, the western Indians live sumptuously and 

 collect quantities for drying. 



P. amygdalus Stokes, almond. 



North Africa and the Orient. The chief distinction between the almond and the 

 peach lies in the fruit, which, in the almond, consists of little more than a stone covered 

 with a thick, dry, wooly skin, while the peach has in addition a rich and luscious flesh. 

 The almond has long been known to cidtivation. Those with sweet and bitter kernels 

 were known to the Hebrews ' and were carried by the Phoenicians to the Hesperian penin- 

 sula. The almond was sacred to Cybele, in Greece, where even at that time there were 

 ten kinds, with sweet and with bitter nuts. Phyllis hung herself on an almond tree and 

 was transfigured into it. Cato * called it nux Graica and Pliny * mentions it. Charle- 

 magne ' caused amandalarios to be planted on his estate. 



linger ' deems the tree indigenous to western Asia and north Africa. Pickering ' 

 ascribes its origin to the Tauro-Caspian countries and others to Barbary, Morocco, Persia 

 and China. Brandis ' says it is indigenous about Lebanon, Kurdistan and in Turkestan. 

 At the present time, it is distributed over the whole of southern Europe, the Levant, 

 Persia, Arabia, China, Java, Madeira, the Azores and the Canary Islands. As a garden 

 plant, it has existed in England since 1548 certainly. In the United States, certain 

 varieties are deemed hardy in the latitude of New York. 



There are many varieties and as many as seven are described by Downing 1 as recom- 

 mended for culture in America. The more common classification is into sweet and bitter 

 almonds, but De Candolle establishes five groups: the bitter almond, the sweet almond, 

 the sweet ahnond with a tender sheU, the sweet almond with large fruit and the peach 

 almond. 



The kernels of the sweet variety are eaten as dessert and are largely used in con- 

 fectionery and in cooking; those of the bitter almond are used in the preparation of noyau 



Treas. Bot. 2:930. 1870. 



Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 805. 1879. 



De Candolle, A. Orig. Cult. Ph. 221. 1885. 



Fluckiger and Hanbury Pharm. 244. 1879. 

 Ibid. 



Ibid. 



' Unger, F. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 320. 1859. (Amygdalus communis) 



Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. ll(>. 1869. (Amygdalus communis) 

 Brandis, D. Forest Fl. i^. 1874. 



" Downing, A. J. Fr. Fr. Trees Amer. 231. 1857. 



