THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 371 



lades and preserves — any of the uses to which the Damsons are commonly 

 put. They are, too, best adapted for long-keeping and shipping of any 

 of the native plums. Except in size, the plums are hardly surpassed in 

 the characters that make a fruit handsome among the native plixms. The 

 trees are large, robust and hardy in central New York, usually free from 

 attacks of insects and fungi and, with their abundant, glossy foliage, are 

 strikingly ornamental. Wayland is of value for New York, however, 

 when all characters are considered, only in furnishing variety, in extending 

 the season for native plums and as an ornamental. 



Wayland was found in a plum thicket on the premises of Professor 

 H. B. Wayland, Cadiz, Kentucky. It was sent by him about 1875 to 

 J. S. Downer and Sons, Fairview, Todd County, Kentucky, who named 

 and introduced it. There has been much discussion as to the botanical 

 status of this variety, various writers having put it in at least three distinct 

 species and Waugh and Bailey have used it as the type of the Wayland 

 group of Prunus hortulana. 



Tree very large and vigorous, spreading, somewhat drooping, flat-topped, open, 

 hardy at Geneva, productive; trunk shaggy; branches rough, dark ash-gray, with 

 inconspicuous lenticels, medium in number and size; branchlets slender, twiggy, long, 

 with intemodes of average length, green, changing to light chestnut-red, glossy, 

 glabrous, with numerous, conspicuous, large, raised lenticels; leaf -buds very small, 

 short, obtuse, plump, appressed. 



Leaves folded upward, ovate or long-oval, peach-like, one and seven-eighths inches 

 across, five inches long, thin; upper surface smooth and glossy, with a grooved midrib; 

 lower surface sparingly pubescent; apex acuminate, base abrupt, margin unevenly 

 serrate, glandular; petiole one inch long, slender, pubescent along one side, with a 

 tinge of red, with from one to five very small, globose, brownish glands usually 

 on the stalk. 



Blooming season late and long; flowers appearing after the leaves, thirteen-six« 

 teenths inch across, white, with disagreeable odor; borne in clusters on lateral buds and 

 spurs, in threes, fours or fives; pedicels fifteen-sixteenths inch long, very slender, 

 glabrous, green; caljrx-tube greenish, narrowly campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes 

 narrow, acute, erect, lightly pubescent within, serrate and with dark-colored glands; 

 petals ovate or oval, irregularly crenate, tapering into long, narrow claws with hairy 

 margins; anthers yellowish; filaments three-eighths inch long; pistil glabrous, shorter 

 than the stamens. 



Fruit very late, season long; one and one-eighth inches by one inch in size, roundish- 

 ovate narrowing somewhat toward the stem, conical, slightly compressed, halves equal; 

 cavity medium to deep, narrow, abrupt; suture usually very shallow and wide, often 

 a distinct line; apex pointed; color dark currant-red, with inconspicuous, thin bloom; 



