46 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



Fruit small, one-half inch or a little more in diameter, globular or depressed-globular, 

 cherry-like, red or yellow; skin thin and tender; flesh soft, juicy, sweet and rather 

 pleasantly flavored; stone oval, short-pointed at both ends, somewhat turgid, ridged 

 on one suture and grooved on the other. 



Prunus cerasifera, the Cherry plum, first came to notice in pomological 

 literature as the Myrobalan plum, a name used as early as the last half 

 of the Sixteenth Century by Tabemae-Montanus and given prominence 

 in the Rariorum Plantarum Historum, published by Clusius in 1601. Why 

 applied to this plum is not known. Myrobalan had long before been used, 

 and is still, as the name of several plum-like fruits of the East Indies, not 

 of the genus Prunus, which are used in tanning, dyeing, ink-making and 

 embalming. Until Ehrhart gave it the name Prunus cerasifera in 1789 it was 

 known as the Myrobalan plum by botanists, some of whom, and nearly all 

 horticulturists, have continued the use of the name until the present time. 



Not a few of the botanists who have used Myrobalan for this plum 

 have called it a botanical variety of Prunus domestica. Among these were 

 Linnaeus and Seringe. Others, as Loisleur and Poiteau, have preferred 

 the name for the species as distinguished by Ehrhart. 



Many of the early botanists, as Toumefort in 1700, Ehrhart in 1701, 

 Loudon in 1806 and Loisleur in 181 2, gave the origin of the Cerasifera 

 plums as North America, but upon what authority does not appear. On 

 the other hand many European botanists, including Linnaeus, gave the 

 habitat as Etirope or Asia. The supposition that this plum came from 

 North America hardly needs discussion. The pltim flora of this continent 

 has been well enough studied so that it can be said that no plant that 

 could by any possibility be the Cerasifera plvim grows on this side of the 

 Atlantic. Neither does it seem logical to consider this an off-shoot of 

 Prunus domestica, for fruit and tree-characters are distinctly different, 

 and for a member of the genus Prunus are remarkably constant. More- 

 over, there is abundant evidence to show that this is a distinct species 

 and that its nativity is in the Turkish and nearby coimtries in Europe 

 and Asia and that there it has been in cultivation for a long time. 



It is very significant that in the old herbals and botanies a frequent 

 name of this fruit is " the Turkish plum." But more specific and almost 

 conclusive proof is that two forms of plums belonging to this species are 

 known to come from the Caucasus region. Prunus divaricata ' is now consid- 



' Ledebour Ind. Hort. Dorp. Suppl. 6. 1824. 



