480 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JUNE 
Schwarz” refers the Prunes to Prunus domestica, and says under P. 
insititia that the Reine Claudes (Green Gages), Mirabelles, and Dam- 
sons are derived from this stock. 
Dippel*s says the species is distributed from south and middle 
Europe to the Orient and the lands of the Caucasus. He says it is the 
progenitor of the Damsons, and he also refers several cultivated orna- 
inental plums to it. 
In this country the species has been more commonly ignored. 
Gray“ seems to have been the first to give it a place, and he made it a 
variety of Prunus spinosa. This disposition of the case has been 
recently adopted by Britton and Brown.® Sargent” mentions P. énst- 
“itia incidentally, as though it were a species well known in cultivation, 
but has given it no discussion, so far as I know. 
Through the kindness of the curators I have been enabled recently 
to examine the material in the herbaria of Columbia University, of the 
Missouri Botanical Garden, and in the United States National Herba- 
rium. The study of these specimens, taken with the literature of the 
subject, points clearly to the conclusion that there is no such species 
as Prunus insititia. A considerable portion of the material is refer- 
able without doubt to P. spinosa, and the remainder with even greater 
certainty to P. domestica. This latter portion, which includes the only 
forms which may give trouble, seems to represent quite clearly the 
Damson section of the Domestica group. In other words, Prunus 
insititia Linn. is doubtless a synonym of P. domestica Damascena 
Linn. 
When Prunus insititia has been given in the botanical manuals of 
the United States, it has been referred to eastern Massachusetts, usu- 
ally as ‘‘adventitious in hedgerows.” When I wrote to Professor Sar- 
gent to ask about specimens in the herbarium of Arnold Arboretum 
he replied: “Prunus insititia has always been a puzzle to us, and 
humerous searches for this tree at the station where it is reported to 
grow in this neighborhood have proved fruitless. It is not repre- 
sented at all in our herbarium, and if you succeed in finding any 
* Forst. Bot. 339. 1892. 
*3 Laubholzkunde 3 : 639. 1893 
+ Prunus spinosa insititia Gray, Man. Bot. 112. 1856 [ed. 2]. In the first edi- 
tion of the Manual (p. 114, 1848), however, Gray called this P. insititia L. 
*S Ill. Fl. 2: 250. 1897. oe 
16 Silva N. A. 4:9. 1892. 
