224 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



"verging to Americana." It grows on the banks of 

 streams and margins of bottom -woods, mostly in 

 thickets. The fruit is said to be very agreeable. 

 Scheele describes the fruit as the size of cherry to 

 that of a mirabelle (myrobalan plum), half an inch to 

 an inch thick, spherical and red. The Towakong 

 Indians boil it with honey, and use it for food. 

 Coulter, in his "Flora of Western Texas," says that 

 this plum is "not uncommon on the Colorado and its 

 tributaries and extending to the upper Guadalupe and 

 the Leona." It is not in cultivation. It evidently 

 bears much the same relation to the Prunus Ameri- 

 cana that Pfunus Watsoni does to the Chickasaw 

 plum* (see pages 207, 208). 



The southern sloe. — The black sloe of the southern 

 states, Prunus umbellata, attains a height of twelve t<> 

 twenty feet, and the foliage is somewhat like narrow- 

 leaved forms of the myrobalan plum. It is distributed 

 in the maritime districts from South Carolina to Texas, 

 reaching north, in its southwestern ranges, to south- 

 ern Arkansas. Sargent says, in his "Silva." that "the 

 fruit is gathered in large quantities and is used in 

 making jellies and jams." In Florida it is sometimes 

 called Hog plum. Fruit sent me from that state was 

 orange -yellow, with faint blushes of red, or some 

 specimens pure yellow, with a thin bloom, freestone. 

 very sour and bitter. A Texas correspondenl writes 

 thai the fruit is usually unpleasant or disagreeable, 



but that an occasional form bears large and g 1 



fruit. Prunus umbellata is not in cultivation Eor its 

 fruit, and it is not likely thai it can compete iu 



•Scheele'a Prtmtu Texana, of which there ia ;i duplicate type In the her- 

 barium of tlif Missouri Botanical Gardens, la Prunxu itwrioono, Seep. 184. 



