Distribution. Stanly County (near Albemarle, J. S. Holmes), North Carolina, and South Carolina southward, usually in the neighborhood of the coast, to Orange County, Florida, and westward to eastern Texas and southern Arkansas. The form with red fruit common in the interior of the Florida peninsula (Orange County). Variable in the amount of its pubescence and slightly variable in the shape of the fruit, and passing into var. injucunda Sarg. (Prunus mitis Beadl.). A small tree with branchlets hoary tomentose when they first appear, becoming pubescent, and puberulous in their second season, leaves more or less tomentose below, villose pedicels, calyx and ovary, and subglobose to short-oblong fruit. Central and southern Georgia (base of Stone Mountain and Little Stone Mountain, De Kalb County, and near Augusta, Richmond County), and eastern Alabama (near Auburn, Lee County). More distinct is
Prunus umbellata var. tarda Wight
Prunus tarda Sarg.
Differing from the type in the more oblong stone of the later-ripening fruit, lighter-colored bark and larger size.
Leaves oblong or oval, or occasionally obovate, acute or acuminate and short-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, and finely serrate with straight or incurved teeth tipped with dark minute persistent glands, when they unfold glabrous or rarely scabrous or puberulous above and cinereo-tomentose below, and at maturity thick and firm, dark yellow-green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale and pubescent or puberulous on the lower surface, especially along the prominent light yellow midrib and thin primary veins, 1½′—3′ long and ¾′—1¼′ wide; petioles stout, tomentose or ultimately pubescent, ⅓′—½′ in length, glandular at apex with 2 large round stalked dark glands, or often eglandular; stipules acicular, often bright red, about ⅓′ long. Flowers appearing early in April with or before the leaves, about ¾′ in diameter, on slender glabrous pedicels, in 2 or 3-flowered umbels; calyx-tube narrow-obconic, glabrous toward the base, villose above, the lobes acute, entire, villose on the outer surface, hoary-tomentose on the inner surface; petals oblong-obovate, gradually contracted below into a short claw. Fruit ripening late in October or early in November, on stout rigid pedicels, short-oblong to subglobose, ⅓′—½′ long, clear bright yellow on some trees, bright red on others, and on others purple, dark blue, or black, with tough thick skin, and thick very acid flesh; stone ovoid more or less compressed, very rugose, obscurely ridged on the ventral suture and slightly grooved on the dorsal suture, acute and apiculate at apex, and rounded at base.
A tree, 20°—25° high, with a tall trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, wide-spreading branches forming an open symmetrical head, and slender branchlets marked by small scattered dark lenticels, light-green and hoary-tomentose when they first appear, becoming glabrous, light red-brown and lustrous during their first summer and darker at the end of their second year. Winter-buds narrow, acute, the color of the branchlets, 1/16′—⅛′ long. Bark ½′—⅝′ thick, light brown tinged with red, and divided by shallow interrupted fissures into flat ridges broken on the surface into small loose plate-like scales.
Distribution. Glades and open woods in the neighborhood of Marshall, Harrison County, Texas, to western Louisiana, southern Arkansas, and western Mississippi.
3. [Prunus nigra] Ait. Red Plum. Canada Plum.
