FOREST ROSE
Prunus hortulana mineri
1. Mich. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 290. 1889. 2. Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 55. 1890. 3. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:55, 86. 1892. 4. Mich. Sta. Bul. 123:19. 1895. 5. Ia. Sta. Bul. 31:346. 1895. 6. Colo. Sta. Bul. 50:36. 1898. 7. Ohio Sta. Bul. 113:154. 1899. 8. Waugh Plum Cult. 173. 1901. 9. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 296. 1903.
Forest Rose, like Forest Garden, belongs to Prunus hortulana mineri, the two being similar in many respects. Forest Rose, however, is not as attractive in color as the other variety, the difference not being well brought out in the color-plates, is smaller and does not keep nor ship quite as well. The variety under discussion is better in quality than Forest Garden and better adapted than the last named variety for the home orchard at least. While somewhat variable in productiveness, in most localities it bears annually and abundantly. The trees are rather more thorny than most of its species.
This variety is said by H. A. Terry of Crescent, Iowa, to be a seedling of Miner, grown by Scott & Company, a Missouri nursery firm, and introduced by William Stark, Louisiana, Missouri, in 1878. Terry offers no evidence to show that this plum is a seedling of Miner and there is a question as to whether more is really known of its parentage other than that it came from Missouri.
Tree medium to large, intermediate in vigor, upright-spreading, open-topped, hardy, variable in productiveness somewhat susceptible to attacks of shot-hole fungus; trunk very rough and shaggy; branches rough, thorny, dark ash-gray, with numerous lenticels; branchlets numerous, slender, variable in length, with internodes of medium length, green changing to dull reddish-brown, glossy, glabrous, with numerous, small, raised lenticels; leaf-buds small, short, obtuse, appressed.
Leaves falling early, folded upward, elongated-oval or obovate, one and one-half inches wide, four inches long, thin; upper surface dull red in the fall, rugose, glabrous, with the midrib and larger veins deeply grooved; lower surface light green, somewhat pubescent along the midrib; apex acuminate, base acute, margin crenate or serrate, with small, dark glands; petiole slender, five-eighths inch in length, sparsely pubescent along one side, tinged with red, glandless or with from one to three small, globose or oval, greenish-brown glands on the stalk.
Flowers seven-eighths inch across, white, with a disagreeable odor; borne in dense clusters on lateral buds and spurs, in pairs or in threes; pedicels five-eighths inch long, below medium in thickness, glabrous, greenish: calyx-tube green, narrowly campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes short and narrow, acute, serrate, somewhat reflexed, glabrous on the outer surface, but more or less pubescent on the inner surface and along the margin, which is strewn with red glands; petals oval, dentate, tapering below into narrow, lightly pubescent claws of medium length; anthers light yellow; filaments one-half inch in length; pistil glabrous, shorter than the stamens.
Fruit late, season short; one and one-eighth inches by one inch in size, roundish-oval; cavity shallow, narrow, flaring; suture a line; apex roundish; color dull crimson overspread with thin bloom; dots very numerous, small, gray, conspicuous; stem slender, three-quarters inch long, smooth, not adhering to the fruit; skin thick, tough, astringent, inclined to crack under unfavorable conditions, adhering; flesh dull apricot-yellow, juicy, fibrous, tender and melting, sweet next to the skin but tart toward the center, aromatic; fair to good; stone clinging, five-eighths inch by one-half inch in size, oval, acute at the apex, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture somewhat blunt.