THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 13 



or possibly, in a few cases at least, hybrids between it and other species. 

 European botanists place some of these in distinct species or sub-species; 

 but few, however, even of the recent writers on the botany of the plum, 

 agree at all closely as to the disposition of these edible and ornamental 

 plums which may be doubtfully referred to Prunus domestica. With this 

 disagreement between the best European authorities where these plums 

 have long been known, where some of them have originated, and all may 

 be found in orchards, botanic gardens and herbaria, it does not seem wise 

 at this distance to attempt a discussion of such doubtful forms. It is cer- 

 tain, however, that Borkhausen's Prunus italica and Prunus ceconomica, 

 as given in the synonymy, are but parts of Prunus domestica, the first in- 

 cluding the Reine Claude plums and the latter the various prunes. So, too, 

 a wild form named by Borkhausen, Prunus sylvestris, is probably a part 

 of Prunus domestica. 



Bechstein 1 gave specific names to a number of plums which Schneider 1 

 holds are all cultivated forms of Prunus domestica. These names are not 

 infrequently found in botanical and pomological literature, to the great 

 confusion of plum nomenclature. The following are Bechstein 's species: 

 Prunus exigua, Prunus rubella, Prunus lutea, Prunus oxycarpa, Prunus 

 subrotunda and Prunus vinaria. 



The plum in which the world is chiefly interested is the Old World 

 Prunus domestica. The Domestica plums are not only the best known of 

 the cultivated plums, having been cultivated longest and being most widely 

 distributed, but they far surpass all other species, both in the quality of 

 the prodtict and in the characters which make a tree a desirable orchard 

 plant. How much of this superiority is due to the greater efforts of man 

 in domesticating the species cannot be said, for the natural history of 

 this plum, whether wild or under cultivation, is but poorly known. It is 

 not even certain that these plums constitute a distinct species, there being 

 several hypotheses as to the origin of the Domestica varieties. Three of 

 these suppositions must be considered. 



Many botanists hold that what American pomologists call the species 

 is an assemblage of several botanical divisions. The early botanists dis- 

 tributed these plums in botanical varieties of one species. Thus Linnaeus, 

 in 1753, divided Prunus domestica into fourteen sub-species, and Seringe, 

 in 1825, made eight divisions of the species. Both of these men include 



1 Bechstein Forstbot. Ed. 5. 424. 1843. 



2 Schneider, C. K. Hand. Laub. 631. 1906. 



