Prunus hortulana mineri
1. Minn. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 81. 1882. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 42. 1883. 3. Minn. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 412. 1889. 4. Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 55. 1890. 5. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:37, 86. 1892. 6. Mich. Sta. Bul. 118:53. 1895. 7. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:24, 37. 1897. 8. Wis. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 136. 1899. 9. Waugh Plum Cult. 148. 1901. 10. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:30. 1903. 11. Ohio Sta. Bul. 162:254, 255. 1905. 12. S. Dak. Sta. Bul. 93:17, 49 & 54 Pl. 1905.
Forest Garden is placed by most horticulturists in Prunus americana, but the trees growing on the Geneva Station grounds belong to the Miner group of Prunus hortulana and the herbarium specimens of foliage and flowers sent from other stations make it probable if not certain that the trees here are true to name. This variety is little grown in the East, but it is widely distributed in the central West where both in tree and fruit-characters it seems adapted to the needs of the climate and soil. It is one of the latest of its group, maturing at a good time for shipping, for which it is further adapted by its tough skin and firm flesh. While Forest Garden is not preeminently a dessert plum, it has a spicy flavor that makes it pleasant eating and it is admirably adapted for culinary purposes, especially for preserving.
This variety is from a wild plum found in the woods bordering on the Cedar River, near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by Thomas Hare, and introduced by H. C. Raymond, of the Forest Garden Nurseries, Council Bluffs, Iowa, about 1862. The American Pomological Society placed the variety on its fruit catalog list in 1883, dropped it in 1891, and replaced it in 1897.
Tree medium to large, often very vigorous, spreading, with sprawling habit, inclined to be flat-topped, perfectly hardy, variable in productiveness, bearing young, somewhat susceptible to shot-hole fungus; trunk small in proportion to the size of the tree, shaggy; branches rather rough, zigzag and inclined to split, thorny, dark ash-brown, with numerous, small lenticels; branchlets thick, long, willowy, with short internodes, greenish changing to dark chestnut-red, glossy, with thin pubescence when young, which disappears in autumn, with conspicuous, numerous raised lenticels; leaf-buds small, short, obtuse, plump, appressed.
Leaves falling early, folded upward, elongated-oval, or obovate, peach-like, one and three-quarters inches wide, four and one-quarter inches long, thin and leathery; upper surface smooth, with a shallow, grooved midrib; lower surface silvery-green, pubescent; apex taper-pointed, base somewhat abrupt, margin doubly crenate, glandular; petiole three-quarters inch long, sparingly pubescent, faintly tinged with red, usually with two conspicuous, globose, brownish glands below the base of the leaf.
Blooming season late and long; flowers appearing with the leaves; seven-eighths inch across, white, with a strong, disagreeable odor; borne in dense but scattering clusters on lateral buds and spurs, in threes or in fours; pedicels nine-sixteenths inch in length, slender, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube green, narrowly campanulate or obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes narrow, obtuse, slightly pubescent, margined with few hairs and with dark-colored glands, slightly reflexed; petals oval, erose, tapering to long claws of medium width; anthers yellowish; filaments seven-sixteenths inch in length; pistil glabrous, shorter than the stamens.
Fruit variable in season which is usually late and short; about one and one-eighth inches in diameter, rather large, roundish-ovate or nearly oval, slightly compressed, halves equal; cavity shallow, wide, flaring; suture a line; apex roundish or somewhat pointed; color light or dark red, with thin bloom; dots numerous, russet, conspicuous; stem slender, five-eighths inch long, glabrous, detaching from the fruit at maturity; skin thick, tough, slightly astringent, adhering; flesh dark golden-yellow, juicy, coarse, fibrous, melting, sweetish next the skin but rather sour toward the center, with a strong and peculiar flavor, aromatic; fair to good; stone clinging, three-quarters inch by five-eighths inch in size, oval, turgid, blunt and slightly flattened at the base, ending in an abrupt but sharp point at the apex, nearly smooth; ventral suture narrow, faintly ridged; dorsal suture acute.
FOREST ROSE
