44 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



European nurserymen now and then offer trees of the Spinosa plum 

 for fruit-growing, sometimes with the statement that the fruit is sweet. 

 But pomologists do not speak highly of these cultivated Spinosas and hold 

 that they are hardly worth cultivation. The wild plums are qtiite com- 

 monly picked for certain markets in Europe, however, especially those 

 in which the Domesticas and Insititias are not common. With plenty of 

 sugar the fruits make a very good conserve. In France the tinripe fniit 

 is pickled as a substitute for olives and the juice of the ripe fruit is some- 

 times used to make or adulterate cheap grades of port wine. In the country 

 districts of Germany and Russia the fruit is crushed and fermented and 

 spirit distilled from it. 



The species is quite variable within limits, but since the wild fruits 

 have been used from the time of the lake-dwellers of central Europe, with- 

 out the appearance of desirable forms, the variations are not likely to give 

 horticulttiral varieties worth cultivating for table use. The variations in 

 the fruit are usually in color, the size and flavor changing but little. Several 

 ornamental forms are in cultivation, of which the chief ones have been 



named. 



4. PRUNUS CURDICA Fenzl and Fritsch. 



I. Fenzl and Fritsch Sitzb. Akad. Wien. Bd. CI. 1:627. 1892. 2. Schneider Handb. Laubh. 

 1:628. 1906. 



The few herbaritim specimens that the writer has seen of this species 

 from southeastern Europe strongly resemble Prunus spinosa but Schneider 

 in the above reference describing it from living specimens says that it 

 differs from the species last named as follows: " Lower growth, about one- 

 half as high, spreading squarrose ramification, much less thominess; 

 leaves more like domestica, when young hairy on both sides, later above 

 nearly and imdemeath more or less glabrous; petiole shorter, not ex- 

 ceeding one cm. ; blooms later, nearly with the leaves, white, about twenty- 

 two mm. in diameter, borne almost always single in this species; pedicel 

 finely pilose, in Prunus spinosa almost glabrous; stamens fewer, about 

 twenty; fruit blue black, stem longer, exceeding twelve mm." 



So far as appears from the few and scant European references to the 

 species it has no horticultural value. 



5. PRUNUS COCOMILIA Tenore. 

 I. Tenore Fl. Neap. Prodr. Suppl. 2:68. 1811. 2. Schneider Handb. Laubh. 1:628. 1906. 



Tree shrub-like, top thick, broadly ovate; branches drooping, shoots short; branch- 

 lets glabrous, young wood olive or reddish-brown. Buds small, roundish-ovate; leaves 



