Chap. 12.] 
TWELVE KINDS OF PLUMS. 
295 
cerina/^ — more esteemed, and the purple** plum : the Arme- 
nian/^ also an exotic from foreign parts, the only one among the 
plums that recommends itself by its smell. The plum-tree 
grafted on the nut exhibits what we may call a piece of impu- 
dence quite its own, for it produces a fruit that has all the ap- 
pearance of the parent stock, together with the juice of the 
adopted fruit : in consequence of its being thus compounded of 
both, it is known by the name of nuci-pruna.'' Nut-prunes, 
as well as the peach, the wild plum,**^ and the cerina, are often 
put in casks, and so kept till the crop comes of the following 
year. All the other varieties ripen with the greatest rapidity, 
and pass off just as quickly. More recently, in Baetica, they have 
begun to introduce what they call ^^malina," or the fruit of 
the plum engrafted on the apple-tree,*^ and amygdalina," the 
fruit of the plum engrafted on the almond-tree,*^ the kernel 
found in the stone of these last being that of the almond in- 
deed, there is no specimen in which two fruits have been more 
ingeniously combined in one. 
Among the foreign trees we have already spoken^^ of the 
Damascene^^ plum, so called from Damascus, in Syria, but 
introduced long since into Italj^ ; though the stone of this plum 
is larger than usual, and the flesh smaller in quantity. This 
plum will never dry so far as to wrinkle ; to effect that, it 
needs the sun of its own native country. The myxa,^^ too, 
43 Or " wax plum." The Prunus cereola of naturaHsts : tlie mirabelle 
of the French. 
Possibly the Primus enucleata of Lamarck : the myrohalan of the 
French. Many varieties, however, are purple. 
There are two opinions on this : that it is the Prunus Claudiana of 
Lamarck, the " Eeine Claude " of the French ; or else that it is identical 
with the apricot already mentioned, remarkable for the sweetness of its 
smell. *6 Or nut-prune. 
The Prunus insititia of Linnaeus. 
The result of this would only be a plum like that of the tree from 
which the graft was cut. 
*9 The same as with reference to the graft on the apple. 
This is probably quite fabulous. B. xiii. c. 10. 
52 The Prunus Damascena of the naturalists ; our common damson, with 
its numerous varieties. 
53 Probably the Cordia myxa of Linnaeus ; the Sebestier of the French, 
It has a viscous pulp, and is much used as a pectoral. It grows only in 
Syria and Egypt ; and hence Fee is inclined to reject what Pliny says as 
to its naturalization at Eome, and the account he gives as to its being en- 
grafted on the sorb. 
