98 TREATISE ON FRUIT TREES. 



XXXII. PLUM TREE with large, oval light purple fruit. 

 Purple IMPERIALE. (PL XV.) 



This is a very vigorous tree. 



The shoots are long & stout, red-brown and speckled with very tiny gray spots. 

 The tip tends to be light purple. 



The buds are big, pointed, and quite separated from the branch. Their stems aren't 

 very raised. 



The flowers are an inch in diameter. The petals are round; the style of the pistil is 

 very long. The flowers often have six, seven, or eight petals; in that case some are round 

 and others are oblong. 



The leaves are three inches long and two inches wide; their denticulation is large, 

 regular, and not very deep. The leaves are elliptical in shape and are similarly pointed at 

 both ends. Their stalk is eight or nine lignes long. 



The fruit is big, long, oval, and slightly more enlarged at the tip than at the end 

 near the stalk. It's about nineteen or twenty lignes long & about fifteen or sixteen lignes 

 in diameter. It hangs on a stalk about nine or ten lignes long that's quite slender and 

 inserts into the middle of a small and quite deep cavity. The groove that divides it 

 lengthwise usually is very discernible. 



Its skin is a bit leathery, light purple, covered with a lot of bloom, and is difficult 

 to separate from the flesh. 



Its flesh is firm & a little dry, whitish green & transparent. 



The juice is sweet & flavorful. 



Its pit is pointed, ten lignes long, six lignes wide, and four lignes thick. It doesn't 

 cling to the flesh at all. 



This plum ripens about the twentieth of August. It's prone to infestation by 

 worms. 



