NATIVE AMEEICAN SPECIES OF PRUNTJS. 3 



that region having foliage at all comparable with that of the damson 

 plum. The fi'uit could not have been much more than formed at 

 the time and, in fact, no mention is made of it. 



A few years later, in 1534, Jacques Cartier (43, p. 17; 68, p. 31) 

 observed some time during the month of July what was probably 

 the fruit of Prunus nigra. "They have also plums, which they dry 

 as we do for the winter; they call them Honesta." The fruit even of 

 this species must have been brought some distance, for it is not 

 known to occur far below the vicinity of Montreal, and no other in 

 that region has fruit large enough to be dried in the manner described. 

 On his second voyage (43, p. 35), plums were again observed by Car- 

 tier in the vicinity of an island which the explorers named Isle de 

 Bacchus, and which is now known as the Isle of Orleans. 



The account of Koberval's voyage (29, p. 294) in 1542 also mentions 

 plums, as foUows: 



And in all these Countreys there are okes, and bortz, ashes, ehnes, arables, trees 

 of life, pines, prussetrees, ceders, great wall nut trees, and wilde nuts, hasel-trees, 

 vrilde peare trees, wilde grapes, and there have bene found redde plummes. 



^\jiother explorer, De Soto (16, p. 43, 61), landed in Florida on 

 May 30, 1539, and the narrator relates that on October 27 they came 

 to Anaica Apalache, which was probably not far from the present 

 site of Tallahassee, Fla., and says: 



There were other towns, where was great store of maiz, pompions, french beanes, 

 and plummes of the countiie, which are better than those of Spaine, and they grow 

 in the fields without planting. * * * There met him on the way [to Canasagua] 

 twenty Indians, every one loaden with a basket ful of mulberries: for there be many, 

 and those very good, from Cutifa-Chiqui thither, and so forward in other provinces, 

 and also nuts and plummes. And the trees grow in the fields without planting or 

 dressing them, and are as big and as rancke as though they grew in gardens digged and 

 watered. 



The fii-st-mentioned trees, those seen in the autumn of 1539, 

 may have been Prunus americana, since that species occurs in the 

 locality specified, and in that section is the latest one to ripen its 

 fruit. The second reference is perhaps to P. angustifolia, as the fruit 

 ripens at the time mentioned, which was about the first of June, 1540. 

 At Copa, or Coosa, about July 26, 1540, the author writes (16, p. 68) : 



There were in the fields many plum trees, as well as of such as grow in Spaine, as of 

 the countrie * * *, 



Cutifa-Chiqua appears to have been on the Savannah River below 

 Augusta, Canasagua on the northern boundary of Georgia, and Coosa 



supposed to bo the locality now represented by Old Coosa on the 



>()sa Iliver, in Georgia. 



Plum.s arc again mentioned as having been observed, probably in 

 .June, 1541, at the Tndi.'in town "C.-isqui" (16, p. 94). This lociiliiy 

 was west <>f tlie Mibsi.ssi})]>i, but commentators dillcr as to its location. 



