PRUNUS DOMESTIC A.— C 0 M M 0 N PLUM TREE. 
Class XII. ICOSANDRIA. Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, POMACEiE. THE APPLE TRIBE. 
The plum-tree is frequently found growing wild in our woods and hedges, bearing flowers in April and May; 
but the country from whence it originally came has not been ascertained. “ Whether,” says J. E. Smith, 
, “ all our cultivated plums may formerly have originated from the Prunus insitia (Wild Bullace-tree), its 
thorns having disappeared by culture, like those of the pear-tree, is a question which no botanist can ever 
j solve.” With respect to the varieties, Parkinson, in 1629, enumerates no fewer than sixty, “ all of which,” 
I he says, “are to be had of my good friend Master John Tradescant, who hath wonderfully laboured to ob- 
tain all the rarest fruits he can hear of in any place in Christendom, Turkey, yea, or the whole world.” 
Professor Martin, in his edition of Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary, also enumerates sixty varieties of the 
plum. We have now, however, nearly three hundred garden varieties. 
The Washington, a modern variety, which is stated in the Pomological Magazine not to be surpassed 
in richness of flavour, beauty, and other good qualities, by any, is curious in its origin. The parent tree was 
purchased in the market of New York, some time in the end of last century. It remained barren several 
| years, till, during a violent thunder storm, the whole trunk was struck to the earth and destroyed. The 
root afterwards threw out a number of vigorous shoots, all of which were allowed to remain, and finally pro- 
duced fruit. It is, therefore, to be presumed that the stock of the barren kind was the parent of this. Trees 
were sent to Mr. Robert Barclay, of Bury Hill, in 1819 ; and in 1821 several others were sent to the Hor- 
ticultural /Society by Dr. Hossack. 
The plum-tree rises about fifteen feet in height, and is destitute of spines. The leaves are pale green, 
oval, serrated, on short footstalks, and when young, convoluted and pubescent underneath : the stipules are 
pointed and placed in pairs at the base of the footstalks. The flowers are large on short peduncles, with a 
bell-shaped deciduous calyx, and five obovate white petals. The filaments are numerous and inserted into 
| the calyx; the germen is round and supports a simple style. The fruit is an oblong drupe, internally con- 
sisting of a sweet fleshy pulp, and inclosing a smooth almond-shaped nut or stone. 
The plum and almost all its species is very apt to run under ground, and produce suckers from the 
j roots. Duhamel says that if plums are grafted low and covered with earth, they push out shoots which 
* may be transplanted. 
Plums of various sorts appear to have been introduced into England as early as the fifteenth century, 
j These varieties came to us from France and Italy. The “green-gage” is the Beine Claude of France, so 
called from having been introduced into that country by the wife of Francis I. It is called Gage in Eng- 
land, after name of the family who first cultivated it here. The “ Orleans ” probably came to us when we 
held possession of that part of France from which it takes its name. Lord Cromwell introduced several 
plums from Italy in the time of Henry VII. The damson or damascene, as its name imports, is from 
Damascus. 
In some countries, particularly in Alsatia, a considerable quantity of alcohol is produced from plums 
| and cherries by fermentation. 
Although in deference to our collegiate authorities, who follow Linneeus in associating the cherries and 
plums in the same genus, the cherry-laurel has been treated of here as a species of Prunus, it may be as well 
| to observe that modern botanists have found it advisable to separate the cherries from the plums, and to 
| revert to those distinctions which were acknowledged by Mr. Miller, and which have always been popularly 
maintained ; for not only do the cherries and plums differ in the shape of the stone, but the drupes of the 
former are smooth and shining, while those of the latter are pruinos, or covered with a resinous secretion, 
commonly called bloom. But even the cherries thus separated from the plums, both need and admit of a 
further subdivision, as they differ in properties and habit, as well as in structure. 
Professor Taylor tells us in Poisons, page 720 — “ That fresh and dried cherries, as well as the kernels and 
stones, yield prussic acid by distillation. The quantity yielded by the pulp of the cherry is exceedingly 
small, amounting to mere traces, but it is much greater in the stones and kernels. From sixteen ounces of 
cherry-stone water, Geisler obtained I'9 grains of cyanide of silver; and from cherry-kernel water, the kernels 
being to the water as 1 : 8 by weight, the cyanide of silver obtained from sixteen ounces, was equal to 2-36 
grains. Twelve ounces of the kernels yielded 7* grains of hydrocyanic acid : but the proportion of prussic 
acid yielded by the same weight of cherry stones, according to Geiseler, was not more than 2*3 grains. 
(Pharm. Jour. Feb. 1846, 372). These kernels bruised are much employed for the purpose of giving a 
flavour to alcoholic liquids. It is not often that they are used in such quantity as to occasion accidents ; 
but the following case, the details of which are somewhat imperfectly given, will shew that the eating of a 
large quantity of the kernels may operate fatally. 
