Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. Ill 
NO. 4 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS. MAY 21. 1917 
Plums and Apricots. Many Plum-trees are covered this year with 
flowers and flower-buds. The earliest of them to flower is probably a 
plant of Pranus salicina, better known as Prunus trijiora, which was 
received a few years ago from a German Nursery under the name of 
Prunus kurdica, a species from central Asia with small black fruit, 
first known by a tree cultivated in Vienna. The German plant flowers 
a few days earlier than the plants of P. salicina raised from seeds 
collected by Wilson in western China, and differs from them in the 
lighter-colored bark of the stem and branches. It bears large yellow 
fruit slightly tinged with red, with thick succulent flesh of excellent 
quality, and seems worth the attention of pomologists in the northern 
states. Prunus salicina, which is the most important Plum-tree of 
eastern Asia, is best known as the origin of the so-called Japanese 
Plums now largely cultivated in the United States. The plants of P. 
salicina raised from Wilson’s seeds are blooming well this year, and 
although the flowers of these trees are only about three-quarters of 
an inch in diameter they are so abundant that, apart from the value 
of their fruit, they are well worth a place in the garden for their 
flowers. 
Prunus Simonii. This native of Northern China is blooming more 
abundantly this year than usual. It is conspicuous among Plum trees 
for the erect-growing branches which form a narrow pyramidal head. 
It produces red sweet fruit of fair quality, and under the name of the 
Apricot Plum it has been much propagated by American pomologists 
and largely grown in this country, especially in the Pacific States. 
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