148 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. I, No. a 
country, the only really edible fruit of the group. However, this fruit 
is still strangely ignored by horticulturists and botanists alike. 
A fifth form, growing in the limestone plains of central Texas, has a dry 
and inedible fruit which has not sufficiently attracted the attention of the 
cattlemen and goat herders in this sparsely settled region to earn a local 
name. 
A sixth form, growing in the high altitudes of both northern and 
southern Mexico, though the first of all to receive botanical notice (1823) 
is still very rare in herbaria and has been seen in its native habitat by but 
few botanical explorers. It was first collected by Humboldt in his 
famous journey through the Mexican plateau region. A seventh species, 
Havard’s wild almond, still very imperfectly known, has recently been 
described from the region inclosed by the Big Bend of the Rio Grande in 
western Texas. 
We have, then, native to the region of North America, lying west of 
the Mississippi drainage area, six or seven members of the plum family 
differing in a very marked way from the familiar types of American wild 
plums. 
They are united by the common character of a woolly or pubescent 
fruit, and all are deep-rooted, with remarkable drought resistance. 
This fruit character, so at variance 1 * with the true plums of America or of 
the Old World, would at first seem to ally these species with the almond 
or apricot sections of the genus, as their common names suggest. A close 
examination of their botanical characters shows, however, that they fail 
to agree with those groups and must be regarded as occupying interme¬ 
diate ground between the true plums on the one hand and the almonds 
or apricots on the other. Aside from the common character of pubescent 
fruit and their deep-rooting habit, these species differ widely from one 
another, which is to be expected from the wide geographic range which 
they occupy and the resulting differences in climate and soil. 
HABITAT AND ENVIRONMENT 
Ranging farthest north is the commonly named * 4 wild almond” 
(.Prunus andersonii) t which is found around the shores of Pyramid Take, 
Nev., in the Honey Take region of California, and along the basin slopes 
of the Sierras, having an altitude range of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet in 
the Upper Sonoran and Transition life zones. (See map, fig. 1.) This 
is consequently subject to severe cold in winter, as much as 20° F. below 
zero in some instances, and to extreme drought and severe heat in the 
summer. It is usually found in gravelly or sandy soils. 
Its near relative, the “wild apricot” {Prunus eriogyna ), found along 
the desert slope of the San Bernardino and Santa Rosa Mountains and 
1 Prunus oregana Greene, of Oregon and northern California, has fruit with a fine, soft pubescence, but it 
is a true plum, near to P. subcordata. 
