54 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



are so free from the fungus troubles which attack European plums, but 

 from which American plums suffer but little. 



As might be expected from their nearness of kin the Triflora plums 

 hybridize readily with the American species and especially with the Hortu- 

 lanas and Munsonianas, the species they most resemble. Unfortunately 

 an amalgamation of the Oriental plums with the Americanas is not so 

 easily accomplished and that with the Domesticas is still more difficult. 

 Hybrids with Prunus simonii are easily made and the progeny as a rule 

 have much merit. Hybrids of the Trifloras with our native species give 

 most promising results, a number of them being described in The Plums 

 of New York. The fact that the Trifloras have been cultivated for several 

 centuries, at least, means in their hybridization with American species 

 that there is an amalgamation of domesticated characters with the similar 

 but wilder characters of our native species. 



It has been very difficult to establish a satisfactory nomenclature 

 for the Triflora plums now grown in America. In spite of the excellent 

 work of Berckmans, 1 Bailey 2 and Waugh,' in bringing order out of 

 what was at one time utter confusion, there is still a great deal of uncer- 

 tainty as to the identification of some varieties. The confusion began with 

 the first extensive importation of these plums from Japan when names 

 which the Japanese applied to classes or groups or the localities from which 

 the plums came were made to apply in America to definite varieties. Many 

 of the names under which the plums were imported have had to be dropped 

 and the varieties boldly renamed. Another source of confusion has been 

 that these, of all plums, seem most variable under changed conditions. 

 Local environment in many instances in America changes somewhat the 

 habit and appearance of varieties, making it difficult to decide whether 

 two or more specimens of the same sort from different localities are iden- 

 tical varieties or distinct. Curiously enough, too, the trees of some varie- 

 ties of plums seem to bear unlike fruit in different years, especially in the 

 matter of time of ripening; that is, trees of some varieties do not always 

 ripen their fruit in the same sequence, being earlier than another variety 

 one year and possibly later the next. All fruits are more or less variable 

 in this respect, but the Triflora plums are remarkably so, a fact that has 

 added to the confusion in their nomenclature, since it adds to the diffi- 

 culty of identifying varieties. 



'Berckmans, L. A. Rpt. Ga. Hort. Soc. 15. 1889. 



7 Bailey, L. H. Cornell Sta. Buls. 62, 106, 139, 175. 



8 Waugh, F. A. Plum Cult. 1901. 



