THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 53 



Domestica plums. The Trifloras are also less subject to ctirculio than 

 most of the native and European species. They keep longer and ship as 

 well as the better known Etiropeans. As compared with native varieties 

 the plums from Japan are larger, handsomer and better flavored and keep 

 and ship better. Some disadvantages are that they blossom so early as 

 to be often caught by spring frosts; they are quite subject to brown- 

 rot; for most part they are tenacious clingstones; the species, all in all, 

 is less hardy to cold than the Domestica pltuns ; lastly, they are inferior 

 in quality to the varieties from Europe. The last fault is so serious that, 

 though the average for the Trifiora pltrnis is high, making them un- 

 questionably more desirable inhabitants of the orchard than any of the 

 native species, they cannot compete with the Domesticas where the two 

 types can be equally well grown. 



The botanical differences between these Asiatic pltims and those from 

 Europe and America are most interesting. In 1859 Asa Gray called atten- 

 tion to the striking resemblances between the east coast floras of Asia and 

 America. The Trifiora plum is one of the plants which furnishes substan- 

 tial evidence of this similarity and of the dissimilarity of the east and 

 west coast floras of the two hemispheres. In general aspect the trees of 

 the Trifiora plums in summer or winter are much more like those of the 

 American species than like those from Europe or West Asia; so, too, the 

 fruits are more alike in appearance and in quality, and the peach-like 

 foliage of the Trifloras might easily be mistaken for that of some of our 

 varieties of Hortulana or Munsoniana. In the manner in which the buds 

 are borne and in vernation the resemblance of the Oriental species to the 

 Americanas, Hortulanas and Munsonianas is again most striking. In 

 Asiatic and American species the buds are borne in twos and threes, while 

 in the European species they are more often single or double. 



The importance of this similarity of the Trifiora plums to the most 

 common American species is seen when Gray's reason for the likenesses 

 between the two floras is considered. This, briefly, is that similar types 

 of post-glacial plants should persist in areas having like geographical 

 positions and like climates; hence east -coast plants in one hemisphere 

 should be expected to be similar to those of the east coast of the other 

 hemisphere and the same with the west coast. Trifiora plums are near 

 of kin to American plums, then, because they have been evolved tmder 

 similar conditions. This is a reason why these plums from Japan 

 are adapted to so wide a range of country in America, and why, too, they 



