124 



AMERICANA PLUMS 



HORTULANA PLUMS 



have plums at hand when wanted, the wild 

 species had to be brought under cultivation. 

 Where the two will grow side by side, it is 

 doubtful whether any one would choose to 

 grow the Americanas in preference to the Euro- 

 peans even for the sake of variety. 



The fruit is reddish or yellowish, or a blend- 

 ing of the two, with the red varieties predomi- 

 nating. Often the color is more nearly orange 

 than red or yellow in fact, pure yellow fruits 

 cannot be found. Wild or cultivated, the 

 fruits of the Americana plums vary greatly in 

 season, size, shape, and flavor. In the orchard, 

 the period of maturity covers a range of sev- 

 eral weeks, beginning in August and ending in 

 October; in the wild, trees in the same thicket 

 may vary as much as three weeks in ripening 

 their fruit. The size of the cultivated sorts 

 ranges from that of a Damson to that of some 

 of the Gages; the shape is round-oval, or quite 

 oval, sometimes oblique and sometimes trun- 

 cate at one or both ends, and often more or 

 less compressed. The wild fruits have a pleas- 

 ant flavor, and this is much improved under 

 cultivation, so that when fully ripe the flesh of 

 some sorts is sweet and luscious, hardly sur- 

 passed, if the skin be rejected, by the best 

 Domesticas. The skin is usually thick, coriace- 

 ous, acerb or astringent; this with the tena- 

 ciously clinging stones is the chief defect of 

 these fruits. In some varieties skin and stones 

 are far less objectionable than in others. 



The trees are not very manageable in the 

 orchard. They make a very slow growth and 

 are hard to control, producing at maturity 

 many leaning trunks that are often crooked, as 

 are also the branches, which, with the unkempt 

 heads, give an impression of waywardness and 

 wildness. Nearly all of the varieties over-bear, 

 and, unless thinned, the fruits are so small as 

 to be hardly worth harvesting ; not infrequently 

 trees die from over-bearing. A few varieties 

 are unfruitful, but usually because of defective 

 pollination. Nearly all sucker badly on their 

 own roots, and, except in cold regions, should 

 be grown on other stocks. In general, there 

 are fewer pests to combat with these than 

 with the European plums, yet they are far 

 from being exempt and require quite as much 

 spraying as do other plums. 



The Americana plums are all hardy, and 

 some of the varieties can be grown as far 

 north as general agriculture is practiced. This, 

 with the Nigras, will probably always be the 

 chief group for dry, cold regions between the 

 great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. It 

 may also be relied upon in the colder parts 

 of New York and New England. The flower- 

 buds as well as the trees are hardy, having 

 been known to withstand a temperature of 

 forty degrees below zero. Since the blossoms 

 open comparatively late, there is less damage 

 from spring frosts in this than in most other 

 species, even of the natives. 



Prunus americana mollis, Torrey and Gray. Woolly- 

 leaved Plum. This is a western and southwestern form 

 of P. americana, the sub-species being distinguished from 

 the species by the amount and character of the 

 pubescence on the leaves and shoots. The leaves, 



petioles and shoots of this plum are soft- pubescent, 

 almost tomentose, the tomentum being pale in color 

 and usually very dense ; the calyx-lobes are pubescent 

 on both sides and the pedicels are appressed and densely 

 pubescent. 



It is impossible to give the range of the 

 group, as the woolly-leaved plum of the West 

 gradually passes into the smooth-leaved species 

 of the East, and the two forms are not in- 

 frequently mixed in the South and Southwest. 

 It can only be said that the sub-species is to 

 be found in the greatest abundance in the 

 region extending from southern Iowa through 

 Missouri. Only two varieties of this plum, 

 Wolf and Van Buren, are in general cultiva- 

 tion. In neither fruit- nor tree-characters do 

 these differ greatly from the Americana plums. 



The Hortulana Plums 



7. Prunus hortulana, Bailey. Tree 30 feet or more 

 in height ; trunk and branches rough and shaggy ; bark 

 gray-brown, thick and containing deposits of red cells 

 when the bark is sectioned ; branches very spreading 

 and open, twiggy, slender, thorny ; branchlets light 

 green at first, becoming reddish-brown, glabrous and 

 glossy ; lenticels few, large, very coarse, raised. Leaves 

 1% inches wide, 3 to 5 inches long, long-oval with a 

 tapering, pointed, acuminate apex, peach-like, thin, 

 becoming leathery ; margins serrate, sometimes in a 

 double series, glandular ; upper surface smooth, glossy, 

 glabrous ; lower surface light green, glabrous except 

 on ribs and veins which are very pubescent, with 

 characteristic orange color ; midrib grooved above, 

 rounded below, very prominent ; petioles slender, 1 inch 

 in length, tinged with red ; glands 2-8, small, globose. 

 Flowers expanding after the leaves, blooming later than 

 any other cultivated plum, % inch across ; odor dis- 

 agreeable ; clusters borne from lateral buds on one- 

 year-old wood only, characterizing the species, the 

 fruit-spurs making a very long growth ; 2-6 flowers from 

 a bud ; pedicels % inch long, very slender, glabrous. 

 Fruit very late, globose, oval, 1 inch in diameter ; color 

 red or yellow ; dots numerous, small, conspicuous ; 

 suture very shallow or only a line ; skin thick, tough, 

 astringent ; flesh golden-yellow, juicy, coarse, fibrous, 

 firm, mildly sweet, astringent at the pit, aromatic ; 

 stone clinging to the flesh, turgid, long-oval, small, 

 prolonged at the ends, the surfaces rough and reticulated. 



This species gives to American pomology a 

 very distinct and valuable group of plums 

 which are adapted to a wide range of condi- 

 tions, especially of climate. The Hqrtulanas 

 are particularly well-suited to the Mississippi 

 Valley and southern states, and fruit well as 

 far north and east as New York. The product 

 of Wayland, Kanawha, and Golden Beauty, 

 best known of the score of plums belonging to 

 this species, is especially suitable for preserves, 

 spicing, and jelly, being unsurpassed for these 

 purposes by any other plums excepting Dam- 

 sons. They are quite too acid, and the flesh 

 clings too tenaciously to the stone for dessert 

 plums or even for ordinary culinary purposes. 

 These plums, having firm flesh and tough skins, 

 ship and keep well, and, since they are the 

 latest of the native plums in ripening, extend 

 the season for this fruit very materially. The 

 Hortulana plums hybridize freely with other 

 native species, and their hybrids are such as to 

 commend this species very highly to plum- 

 breeders for hybridization. 



Prunus hortulana Mineri, Bailey. The sub-species 

 differs from the species in having shorter, stiffer, less 

 graceful branches ; leaves smaller, thicker, rougher and 

 of a bluish-green cast ; the blossoms of the two are 

 much the same, but those of the sub-species open a few 



