70 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



pubescent and tinged with red; stipules lanceolate, sometimes lobed, one-half inch 

 in length. 



Flowers expanding early, before or with the leaves, large, sometimes one and one-half 

 inches across; borne in three or four-flowered lateral umbels on slender, glabrous, 

 red pedicels one-half inch or more in length; calyx- tube obconic, outer surface red, 

 inner surface pink; calyx-lobes glabrous on both surfaces or with a few, straight, scat- 

 tered hairs on the inner surface, pinkish, acute, glandular; petals pink, turning a darker 

 pink in fading, rather broadly ovate, apex rounded, base a short claw, margins erose ; 

 stamens with yellow anthers; filaments one-half inch long; pistils glabrous, shorter than 

 the stamens. 



Fruit ripening comparatively early; globose or oval, usually somewhat oblong, 

 an inch or more through the long diameter, red, orange or yellowish in color, with 

 little or no bloom; skin thick, tough and astringent; flesh yellow, firm, meaty, often 

 acid or astringent; stone usually clinging, large, oval, compressed, thick- walled, with a 

 sharp ridge on the ventral and a slight groove on the dorsal suture. 



It is possible that a group of Nigras, those occurring in western Wis- 

 consin and Minnesota and about the upper extremity of Lake Superior 

 ought to be described as a sub-species since they have a somewhat different 

 aspect of tree and the fruits are a darker shade of red and show more bloom ; 

 the calyx is more pubescent and the calyx -glands more sessile. The dif- 

 ferences in environment may change these characters, as indicated above, 

 but they seem very constant in the cultivated varieties of the groups, most 

 of which come from the west, and therefore sufficient to segregate this 

 form from the species. 



The Nigra is the wild plum of Canada. Its most common name, 

 " Canada Plum," is distinctly applicable and is here supplanted by 

 " Nigra " only for the sake of uniformity. This is undoubtedly the dried 

 plum which Jacques Cartier saw in the canoes of Indians, in his first voyage 

 of discovery up the St. Lawrence in 1534.' These primitive prunes, Cartier 

 says, the Indians called " honesta." In his second voyage, the next year, 

 he enumerates among other fruits the plum, "prunier," growing on the 

 " Ysle de Bacchus," named from its " Vignes." Dried plums, we learn 

 from many later accounts, were a staple article of the winter diet of the 

 savages. That the Indian tended the trees is probable, for the early ex- 

 plorers often record that plantations of plums were found about the abo- 

 riginal towns. Undoubtedly the range of this species was greatly extended 

 by the Indians. 



The Nigra is the most northern of the American plums, being an 

 inhabitant of a region bounded on the north by a line passing from southern 



1 Hakluyt Voyages 3:258. 



