THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 97 



ground do not produce flowers as they frequently do in the case of 

 Prunus maritima. 



The cultivation of this plum has not been attempted and as compared 

 with Maritima it promises little for the fruit-grower. 



22. PRUNUS ORTHOSEPALA Koehne 



i. Koehne Deut. Dend. 311. 1893. 2. Sargent Gar. and For. 7:184, 187 fig. 1894. 3. Bailey 

 Cyc. Am. Hon. 1450. 1901. 



Shrub four or five feet high; branches dense and twiggy; stems sometimes armed 

 with slender spines; bark separating in large, loose scales; branchlets stout, slightly 

 zigzag, reddish-brown becoming dark brown. 



Winter-buds obtuse, three-lobed at maturity; leaves oblong-ovate, thin and 

 firm, acuminate, long-pointed, two and one-half to three inches long, two-thirds inch 

 broad, unequally cuneateor rounded at the base; margins closely serrate with incurved, 

 calloused or rarely glandular teeth; upper surface glabrous, light green, lower surface 

 paler and pilose; petioles slender, slightly grooved, puberulous, one-half inch long; 

 glands two, large, at the apex of the petiole. 



Flowers appearing after the leaves; borne in three or four-flowered fascicles on 

 stout pedicels one-half inch long; calyx- tube turbinate; lobes puberulous on the outer 

 surface, with thick tomentum, often tipped with red on the inner surface; petals 

 narrowly obovate, rounded at the apex, narrowing at the base into slender claws, white 

 or tinged with pink; stamens orange, exserted; style glabrous, thickened at the apex 

 into a truncate stigma. 



Fruit globose, an inch in diameter, deep red with a heavy bloom; skin thick; 

 flesh yellow, juicy, of good flavor; stone flattened, oval, slightly rugose, deeply 

 grooved on the dorsal and ridged on the ventral edge. 



The history and habitat of Orthosepala are given by Sargent as fol- 

 lows: 'The history of this plant as I know it, is briefly this : In June, 

 1880, Dr. George Engelmann of St. Louis, sent to the Arnold Arboretum 

 a package of seeds marked ' Prunus, sp. southern Texas.' Plants were 

 raised from these seeds and in 1888, or earlier, they flowered and produced 

 fruit, which showed that they belonged to a distinct and probably un de- 

 scribed species. A name, however, was not proposed for it, and in 1888, 

 probably, plants or seeds were sent to Herr Spath, of the Rixdorf Nurseries, 

 near Berlin, where this plum was found in flower by Dr. Emil Koehne, 

 who has described it under the name of Prunus orthosepala." 



Of the affinity of this species Sargent says: "Prunus orthosepala is 

 a true plum, rather closely related to Prunus hortulana, from which it can 

 be distinguished by the smaller number of glands of the petioles, by the 

 eglandular calyx-lobes, the dark colored fruit and smoother stone." As 

 the writer has seen this plum growing in the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica 



