[74] ‘Fruits of America,’ pp. 276, 278, 284, 310, 314. Mr. Rivers raised (‘Gard. Chron.,’ 1863, p. 27) from the Prune-pêche, which bears large, round, red plums on stout, robust shoots, a seedling which bears oval, smaller fruit on shoots that are so slender as to be almost pendulous.
[75] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1855, p. 726.
[76] Downing’s ‘Fruit Trees,’ p. 278.
[77] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1863, p. 27. Sageret, in his ‘Pomologie Phys.,’ p. 346, enumerates five kinds which can be propagated in France by seed: see also Downing’s ‘Fruit Trees of America,’ pp. 305, 312, etc.
[78] Compare Alph. De Candolle ‘Géograph. Bot.,’ p. 877; Bentham and Targioni-Tozzetti, in ‘Hort. Journal,’ vol. ix. p. 163; Godron, ‘De l’Espèce,’ tom. ii. p. 92.
[79] ‘Transact. Hort. Soc.,’ vol. v. 1824, p. 295.
[80] Ibid., second series, vol. i. 1835, p. 248.
[81] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 138.
[82] These several statements are taken from the four following works, which may, I believe, be trusted: Thompson, in ‘Hort. Transact.,’ see above; Sageret’s ‘Pomologie Phys.,’ 1830, pp. 358, 364, 367, 379; ‘Catalogue of the Fruit in the Garden of Hort. Soc.,’ 1842, pp. 57, 60; Downing, ‘The Fruits of America,’ 1845, pp. 189, 195, 200.
[83] Mr. Lowe states in his ‘Flora of Madeira’ (quoted in ‘Gard. Chron.,’ 1862, p. 215) that the P. malus, with its nearly sessile fruit, ranges farther south than the long-stalked P. acerba, which is entirely absent in Madeira, the Canaries, and apparently in Portugal. This fact supports the belief that these two forms deserve to be called species. But the characters separating them are of slight importance, and of a kind known to vary in other cultivated fruit-trees.