Handbook of Trees of the !N"orthekn States and Canada. 273 



The Wild Goose Plum attains the height o{ 

 20 or 30 ft. with broad rounded top of rigid 

 branches and trunk sometimes 10 or 12 in. in 

 diameter. In localities it is found as a tall 

 shrub forming thickets of considerable extent. 

 It inhabits the low banks and islands of streams 

 subject to annual inundation (for which rea- 

 "son it is sometimes called River Plum) in 

 company with the Sycamore, River Birch, vari- 

 ous Willows, Green Ash, Box-Elder, King-nut 

 Hickory, Eed-bud, etc. It is said that it takes 

 its common name from the fact that one of 

 the first noticed trees was grown from a stone 

 taken from the crop of a wild goose. 



General orchard varieties are in cultivation, 

 producing fruit of excellent quality. Among 

 them are the Miner, Langston, Clinton, etc. (of 

 var. Min^ri) and the Wayland, Golden Beauty, 

 Moreman, etc. (of var. Waylandi) . 



The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and suitable 

 for use in turnery. 



Leaves ovate-lanceolate to ovate, wedge-shaped 

 or rounded at base, long taper-pointed, closely 

 glandular-serrate, pilose at first but at maturity 

 glabrous, lustrous dark green above, paler and 

 pilose in the axils of the prominent veins be- 

 neath ; petioles with dark glands near the leaf- 

 blade. Flowers when the leaves are about half 

 grown, 1 in. or less across, in 2-4-flowered puber- 

 ulous umbels ; calyx with acute or rounded 

 glandular-serrate lobes, pubescent both sides; 

 petals white, rounded. Fruit subglobose or short- 

 oblong, 1 in. or less in diameter, with thick 

 tough red or yellow skin of pleasant flavor and 

 with turgid stone prominently ridged on the ven- 

 tral edge and grooved on the dorsal. 



