THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES 



Manchuria and Korea for its fruit. It is a very hardy 

 plant and will thrive in the coldest parts of the 

 United States. It has short-stalked, globose, scarlet 

 fruit, very juicy and pleasantly acid. The plant 

 seldom exceeds 6 feet in height and as much in dia- 

 meter, and has leaves clothed with gray, woolly hairs 

 on the underside. The Sand Cherry (P. pumila) 

 of eastern North America and its western relative 

 {P. Besseyi) have received a little attention from 

 fruit breeders during recent years and may ultimately 

 prove of some value, but their fruits are decidedly 

 astringent. 



The consensus of opinion is that our common 

 Plums have been evolved by long cultivation from 

 two Eurasian species, P. insititia and P. domestica. 

 To the first-named belong the damsons, bullace, 

 mirabelle, and St. Julien plums; the second is the more 

 important of the two and here belong the green- 

 gages (Reine Claude plums), the prunes, the per- 

 drigon plums, the yellow egg plums, the Imperatrice, 

 and the Lombard plums. The Insititia plum was 

 mentioned by the old Greek poets Archilochus and 

 Hippona in the 6th century b. c. and has been 

 cultivated from the earliest times. Nowadays it 

 grows wild in all the temperate parts of Europe, and 

 in western Asia to the Caspian region. The Dam- 

 sons derive their name from the old city of Da- 



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