250 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



IMPERIAL EPINEUSE 



Prunus domestica 



i. Cal. State Bd. Hort. 48, 50. 1897-98. 2. U. S. D. A. Div. Pom. Bui. 7:316. 1898. 3. Can. 

 Exp. Farm Bui. 2nd Ser. 3:53. 1900. 4. Bailey Cyc. Hort. 1378. 1901. 5. Wickson Cal. Fruits 2 2 1 , 

 224. 1908. 



Clairac Mammoth i, 5. Imperial Epineux 3. 



Imperial Epineuse is well worthy a trial in New York. It is not sur- 

 passed in quality by any other plum of its color. It is one of the largest 

 plums in the Prune group and is made further attractive by a handsome 

 reddish-purple color which is lighter or darker according to the exposure 

 of the plums to the sun. As grown in two orchards near Geneva the tree- 

 characters are exceptionally good; the crop is so borne on the main limbs 

 as to be protected from the sun and the tree is particularly large and vigor- 

 ous, its strong upright growth being a striking characteristic of the variety. 

 If the variety proves to be as valuable elsewhere in the State in all char- 

 acters as it is here it cannot but make a very desirable plum for the market. 



The Imperial Epineuse was found growing as a chance seedling about 

 1870 in an abandoned monastery near Clairac, in the Valley of Lot, the 

 great prune district of France. It was first brought to the United States 

 by Felix Gillett of Nevada City, California, who received the variety with 

 several others in 1883, three years previous to a similar importation made 

 by John Rock of Niles, California. After testing the variety Mr. Gillett 

 mentioned it, without a name, in his catalog in 1888 but owing to the 

 scarcity of the trees was unable to introduce it to the trade until 1893 

 when it was sent out under the name " Clairac Mammoth," from the name 

 of its place of origin. In 1895 E. Smith & Sons of Geneva, New York, received 

 this variety from Gillett and grew it under the name "Clarice Mammoth". 



Tree large, vigorous, spreading, fairly productive; branches numerous, covered 

 with many fruit-spurs; branchlets twiggy, marked with scarf-skin; leaf -buds large, 

 very free, broad at the base; leaves folded backward, obovate, one and three-quarters 

 inches wide, three and one-half inches long, thick, rugose, glabrous except along the 

 deeply and widely grooved midrib; petiole one inch long, tinged red, glandless or with 

 from one to three globose glands; blooming season intermediate in time and length; 

 flowers appearing after the leaves, one inch across, singly or in threes. 



Fruit rather late, season short to medium in length; large, slightly obovate, 

 purplish-red, darker on the sunny side, mottled, overspread with thick bloom; flesh 

 greenish-yellow, fibrous, rather tender, sweet, agreeable in flavor; good to very good; 

 stone clinging, one inch by five-eighths inch in size, irregular-oval, flattened, obliquely 

 but bluntly contracted at the base, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture narrow, prom- 

 inent, often distinctly winged. 



