150 TREES 



the genus is to break a twig at any season of the year and 

 taste the sap. If it is bitter and astringent with hydro- 

 cyanic acid (the flavor we get in fresh peach-pits and bitter 

 almonds), we may be sure we have run the tree down to the 

 genus prunus. 



The Wild Red Plum 



Prunus Americanus, Marsh. 



The wild red or yellow plum forms dense thickets in moist 

 woods and along river banks from New York to Texas and 

 Colorado. Its leafless, gnarled, and thorny tv/igs are 

 covered in spring with dense clusters of white bloom, 

 honey-sweet in fragrance, a carnival of pleasure and profit 

 to bees and other insects. In hot weather this nectar 

 often ferments and sours before the blossoms fall. The 

 abundant dry pollen is scattered by the wind. The plum 

 crop depends more upon wind than upon insects, for the 

 pollination period is very brief. 



After the frost in early autumn, the pioneers of the 

 prairie used always to make a holiday iij the woods and 

 bring home by wagon-loads the spicy, acid plums which 

 crowded the branches and fairly lit up the thicket with the 

 orange and red color of their puckery, thick skins. In a 

 land where fruit orchards were newly planted, "plum 

 butter " made from the fruit of nature's orchards was grate- 

 fully acceptable through the long winters. Even when 

 home-grown sorghum molasses was the only available 

 sweetening, the healthy appetites of prairie boys and girls 

 accepted this "spread" on the bread and butter of noon- 

 day school lunches, as a matter of course. 



