Giant is distinguished for its large size and attractive color. The accompanying color-plate shows the color and shape very well, but the fruit is a little too small. Unfortunately Giant is somewhat inferior in quality, a disappointment to all, as with Agen for a parent high quality was to be expected. In quality, as in all fruit-characters, the variety resembles the male parent, Pond. The flesh is coarse, fibrous, lacking in juice, clings more or less to the stone and rots quickly under unfavorable conditions. The trees, too, lack somewhat in both vigor and productiveness. Introduced as a prune, it was supposed that this variety would prove a great boon to prune-makers, but it does not cure well and is now hardly used for drying. Giant is proving to be one of the very best shipping plums, as would be expected because of its firm, dry flesh. It is unfortunate that so attractive a plum cannot be unqualifiedly recommended, but it is doubtful if it is worth planting on a commercial scale in New York.
Giant was grown by Luther Burbank, Santa Rosa, California, from a seed of Agen fertilized by Pond, the Hungarian Prune of the Pacific Coast. The stock of this variety was offered for sale to nurserymen in 1893 and 1894, but not to fruit-growers until 1895, and then by the originator. The American Pomological Society placed it on their fruit catalog list in 1899 as a promising variety for this region and southern California.
Tree medium in size and vigor, round and dense-topped, hardy, usually productive; branches short, stocky, dark ash-gray, with large lenticels; branchlets short, with internodes of medium length, greenish-red changing to dark brownish-red, dull, thinly pubescent, heavily marked with scarf-skin and with few, small, inconspicuous lenticels; leaf-buds small to medium, short, conical, appressed.
Leaves folded backward, obovate or oval, two and one-quarter inches wide, three and three-quarters inches long; upper surface pubescent only along the midrib; lower surface pale green, lightly pubescent on the midrib and larger veins; apex abruptly pointed or acute, margin serrate or crenate, usually with small, dark glands; petiole three-quarters inch long, tinged red along one side, sparingly pubescent, glandless or with from one to four greenish-brown glands usually on the stalk.
Blooming season intermediate in time and length; flowers appearing after the leaves, one and three-sixteenths inches across, creamy in the buds, changing to white on opening, borne in scattering clusters on short, lateral buds and spurs, singly or in pairs; pedicels three-eighths inch long, thick, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube green, campanulate, glabrous or lightly pubescent; calyx-lobes broad, obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate, reflexed; petals oval, somewhat erose, with short, broad claws; anthers yellowish; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous, longer than the stamens.
Fruit mid-season, period of ripening short; two inches by one and one-half inches in size, obovate, slightly necked, compressed, halves unequal; cavity shallow, narrow, abrupt; suture shallow; apex roundish or depressed; color light to dark purplish-red, overspread with bloom of medium thickness; dots numerous, smallish, russet, inconspicuous; stem seven-eighths inch long, thinly pubescent, adhering well to the fruit; skin of medium thickness and toughness, adhering but slightly to the pulp; flesh light golden-yellow, variable in juiciness, coarse, somewhat fibrous, firm, rather sweet, mild fair in quality; stone semi-clinging or clinging, one and one-eighth inches by five-eighths inch in size, long-oval, flattened, with rough and pitted surfaces; ventral suture strongly furrowed; dorsal suture with a shallow groove.
GLASS
Prunus domestica
1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 3rd App. 181. 1881. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 39. 1899. 3. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:245. 1899. 4. Waugh Plum Cult. 104. 1901. 5. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:34. 1903. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 57. 1907.
Glass Seedling 2. Glass Seedling 4, 5, 6.