THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 185 



Czar seems to have a very good reputation in Europe, in England espe- 

 cially, as a culinary fruit but in America it is but second rate for cooking 

 and cannot be called a dessert plum at all. Its earliness might make it 

 valuable were it not for the fact that Clyman is as early and in nearly all 

 other respects is a better plum. The Czar, like Clyman, is not quite hardy 

 and lacks somewhat in productiveness. The stone of Czar is usually cov- 

 ered with a granular, giunmy exudation about the apex and its flowers 

 are peculiar in being more or less doubled. It is doubtful if this variety 

 is worth planting in New York. This plum was raised by Thomas Rivers, 

 Sawbridgeworth, England, from a Prince Englebert seed fertilized by Early 

 Prolific. It first fruited in 1874 and was named for the Czar of Russia 

 who visited England during the same year. Ellwanger & Barry, of Roches- 

 ter, New York, offered it for sale in the United States in 1886. 



Tree intermediate in size and vigor, round and open-topped, not always hardy, 

 moderately productive; branches covered with many fruit-spurs, smooth except for the 

 numerous raised lenticels and transverse cracks in the bark; branchlets covered with 

 thick pubescence throughout the season, with numerous small lenticels; leaf -buds large, 

 strongly free; leaves folded upward, oval, one and three-quarters inches wide, three 

 inches long; petiole one- half inch long, thick, pubescent, eglandular or with one or two 

 large, yellowish-green glands at the base of the leaf; blooming season intermediate in 

 time, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, one inch or more across, white, with a 

 yellowish tinge at the apex of the petals; borne in clusters on lateral spurs, in pairs 

 or in threes; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous except at the base, 

 slightly longer than the stamens. 



Fruit very early, season short ; one and one-half inches in diameter, irregular round- 

 ish-oval, compressed, dark purplish -black, overspread with thick bloom; flesh yellow, 

 coarse and somewhat granular, fibrous, tender, sweet, pleasant flavor; good; stone 

 free, three-quarters inch by five-eighths inch in size, oval or sUghtly ovate, blunt at 

 the base, somewhat acute 'at the apex, with ridged and roughened surfaces; ventral 

 suture wide, broadly furrowed, with a short blunt wing; dorsal suture acute or with a 

 narrow, shallow, indistinct groove. 



DAMSON 



Prunus insititia 



I. Parkinson Par. Ter. 578. 1629. 2. Gerard Herball 1496, 1498. 1636. 3. Quintinye Com. 

 Card. 67. 1699. 4. Langley Pomona 94. 1724. 5. Forsyth Treat. Fr. Trees 21. 1803. 6. Am. 

 Card. Cal. $?,&. 1806. 7. Phillips Com. OrcA. 306. 1831. 8. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 145, ^46. 1831. 

 9. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 297. 1845. lO- Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 342. 1849. ^i- -4'«- Pom. 

 Soc. Cat. 86. 1862. 12. Hooper W. Fr. Book 244. 1857. 13. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:69. 1873. 14. 

 Manning Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc. 4. 1880. 15. Hogg Fruit Man. 695. 1884. 16. De CandoUe Or. 

 Cult. Plants 212. 1885. 17. Mathieu Norn. Pom. 438. 1889. 18. Am. Card. 14:146, 147. 1893. 



