92 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



The first four of these have in the past been referred by botanists and 

 pomologists to Prunus angusttfolia and the last two to Primus hortulana. 



20. PRUNUS MARITIMA Marshall 



I. Marshall Arbust. Am. 112. 1785. 2. Wangenheim Amer. 103. 1787. 3. Michaux Fl. 

 Bar. Am. 1:284. 1803. 4. Pursh Fl. Am. Sept. 332. 1814. 5. Nuttall Gen. N. Am. PI. 1:302. 

 1818. 6. Elliott Sk. Bot. S. C. and Ga. 1:543. 1821. 7. Torrey and Gray Fl. N. Am. i -.408. 1840. 

 8. Torrey Fl. N. Y. 1:194. 1843. 9- Emerson Trees of Mass. 449. 1846. 10. Bailey Cornell Sla. 

 Bui. 38:75, fig. No. 9. 1892. ii. Waugh Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 12:234. 1899. 12. Bailey Cyc. Am. 

 Hort. 1449, fig- 1901. 



P. littoralis. 13. Bigelow Fl. Bost. Ed. 2:193. 1824. 



P. fubescens. 14. Torrey Fl. U. S. 469. 1824. 



Cerasus fubescens. 15. Seringe DC. Prodr. 2:538. 1825. 16. Beck Bot. Nor. and Mid. U. 

 S. 96. 1833. 



Shrub four to ten feet high, sometimes a low tree under cultivation; main branches 

 decumbent and straggling or upright and stout; bark dark brown or reddish, more 

 or less spiny, often warty; branchlets slightly pubescent at first, becoming glabrous, 

 dark reddish-brown, straight or slightly zigzag and rather slender; lenticels few, 

 small, dark. 



Winter-buds small, long, acute, with small reddish scales; leaves oval or obovate, 

 short-acute or nearly obtuse at the apex, rounded or nearly acute at the base, 

 margins closely and evenly serrate, thinnish or thickish and somewhat leathery; upper 

 surface glabrous, dull green, lower surface paler and more or less pubescent; petioles 

 less than one-half inch long, stout, tomentose or glabrous; glands two, sometimes 

 more, at the base of the leaves. 



Flowers small, appearing before the leaves but the latest of any of the hardy plums; 

 borne in three-flowered umbels closely set along the rigid branches ; calyx-tube campan- 

 ulate, tomentose; petals white, sometimes pinkish, sub-orbicular, narrowed into a claw 

 at the base; pedicels short, slender, stiff, tomentose. 



Fruit maturing in late summer in Massachusetts; one-half inch in diameter, globose, 

 slightly flattened at the ends; cavity shallow, borne on a slender pedicel more than one- 

 half inch in length, usually dark purple with a heavy bloom but variable, sometimes 

 red or less frequently yellow; skin thick, tough and acrid; flesh crisp, juicy, sweetish; 

 stone free from the flesh, small, turgid, pointed at both ends, cherry-like, acutely ridged 

 on one and grooved on the other edge. 



Prunus maritima, or as it has long been known, the Beach plum, is 

 as yet hardly grown as a domesticated fruit. It is destined, however, in 

 the minds of not a few, because of qualities which we shall describe, to 

 play a more important part in the future of the cultivated plum flora than 

 it has in the past. It has several valuable characters that should fit it 

 alike for direct cultivation and for hybridizing with other species. It is 

 surprising that more has not been done to domesticate the Maritima plums 



