THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES 



century. The Perdigon Plums are an old group and 

 take their name from an ancient geographical division 

 of Italy. Of the Egg Plums the Imperial or Red 

 Magnum Bonum was known in England in 1629 

 and the Yellow Egg is described by Rea in 1676. 

 Parkinson in 1629 describes half-a-dozen sorts of 

 Imperatrice Plums distinguished by blue-black 

 bloomy fruits. Both Insititia and Domestica Plums 

 were among the earliest fruits planted by the settlers 

 in this country but they have never attained the 

 importance here that they hold in Europe. 



Before leaving the subject of Eurasian Plums 

 mention ought to be made of P. cerasifera, the Myro- 

 balan Plum, native of Transcaucasia, northern Persia, 

 and Turkestan. It is a hardy, handsome tree but 

 its fruit is much inferior to that of the two already 

 mentioned so it is but little grown. 



The Plum cultivated in the temperate parts of 

 eastern Asia is Prunus salicina, better known as P. 

 triflora and in the vernacular as the Japanese Plum. 

 It is indigenous in central China where I have found 

 it to be fairly common, but is unknown in a wild 

 state from any other region. Curiously enough it is 

 the only true Plum known from all that vast region. 

 In China it has been cultivated from time immemorial 

 and there are varieties in quantity, some with green- 

 ish, others yellow, red, or bloomy-black fruits. From 



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