1. Am. Gard. Cal. 588. 1806. 2. Prince Treat. Hort. 25, 26. 1828. 3. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 147, 148. 1831. 4. Prince Pom. Man. 2:56. 1832. 5. Kenrick Am. Orch. 209. 1835. 6. Mag. Hort. 6:123. 1840. 7. Cultivator 10:167 fig. 1843. 8. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 278 fig. 107. 1845. 9. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 302, 383. 1846. 10. N. Y. Agr. Soc. Rpt. 343 fig. 1847. 11. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 325, 326 fig. 254. 1849. 12. Mag. Hort. 16:454. 1850. 13. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 54. 1852. 14. Elliott Fr. Book 411. 1854. 15. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 148, Pl. 5 fig. 1. 1864. 16. Barry Fr. Garden 413. 1883. 17. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 443. 1889. 18. Wickson Cal. Fruits 355. 1891. 19. Mich. Sta. Bul. 103:34. 1894. 20. Guide Prat. 154, 364. 1895. 21. Cornell Sta. Bul. 131:187. 1897. 22. Va. Sta. Bul. 134:42. 1902. 23. Ohio Sta. Bul. 162:239, 254, 255. 1905.
Flushing Gage 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20. Flushing Gage 3, 9. Harper 22. Imperial Gage 17, 20. Imperial Green Gage 7. Jenkinson’s Imperial 6, 14, 15. Prince’s Gage 4, 12, 17. Prince’s Imperial Gage 4, 5, 6, 10. Prinzens Kaiser Reine Claude 20. Prince’s Kaiser Reine-Claude 17. Prince’s Imperial Gage 8, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20. Prince’s White Gage 4, 12, 17. Reine-Claude de Flushings 20. Reine-Claude Imperiale 20. Reine-Claude Imperiale 17. Reine-Claude Verte Imperiale 17. Reine-Claude Imperiale de Prince 17, 20. Reine-Claude Blanche de Boston 17, 20. Reine-Claude Verte Superieure 20. Superior Gage 9. Superior Green Gage 12, 14, 15, 17, 20. Superior Green Gage? 3. Superiour Green Gage 8. White Gage? 1, 2, 20. White Gage 14, 15. White Gage of Boston 7, 8, 11, 17.
Probably there is more contradictory evidence as to the value of Imperial Gage than of any other American grown plum. It is down in some of the fruit books as being the largest of all the Reine Claude plums and in others as being too small to be desirable; in some, as being of highest quality and in others as being quite too insipid to be called a dessert fruit. These contradictions have arisen because the variety grows quite differently in different soils. The Imperial Gage is best adapted to light sandy soils, growing largest and being best in quality on such soils and making the poorest show of all on heavy clay. The illustration in The Plums of New York shows it as it grows on an unsuitable soil—small, poorly colored, worthless for a money-crop and not very desirable for home use. The technical description is also based on trees grown and fruit produced on soil to which it is illy-adapted. The trees from which these fruits came are nearly perfect in habits of growth, vigorous, hardy, healthy and bearing large crops of plums—such as they are. On suitable soils the variety possesses all the qualities that constitute a fine plum, the product being adapted alike for dessert, canning, home and market. It has an especially agreeable flavor in all the various culinary preparations in which it can be used. Its capriciousness does not warrant its being largely planted but for selected locations it will prove a most valuable fruit.
The Princes in their nursery at Flushing, Long Island, New York, about the year 1790, planted the pits of twenty-five quarts of the Green Gage plum and from these produced, among others, a plum which they called the White Gage. William R. Prince, in order to distinguish this variety from the other Gage plums, changed the name to Prince’s Imperial Gage, now shortened to Imperial Gage. In 1852, the American Pomological Society placed it on its catalog list of recommended fruits.
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, open-topped, hardy, very productive; branches ash-gray, smooth, with conspicuous, transverse cracks in the bark, with lenticels of medium size; branchlets slender, short, with internodes above medium in length, greenish-red changing to dark brownish-red, dull, sparingly pubescent throughout the season, with small, inconspicuous lenticels; leaf-buds medium in size and length, conical, appressed.
Leaves folded upward, oval or slightly obovate, one and seven-eighths inches wide, three and one-quarter inches long, thick; upper surface dark green, rugose, pubescent, with a shallow groove on the midrib; lower surface yellowish-green, pubescent; apex abruptly pointed, base acute, margin crenate, with small dark glands; petiole one-half inch long, thick, pubescent, purplish-red along one side, glandless or with one or two small, globose, yellowish-green glands usually on the stalk.
Blooming season short; flowers one and one-eighth inches across, white; borne on lateral buds and spurs, singly or in pairs; pedicels three-quarters inch long, pubescent, greenish; calyx-tube green, campanulate, pubescent, with a swollen ring at the base; calyx-lobes above medium in width, obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate, slightly reflexed; petals broadly obovate, crenate, tapering below to short, broad claws; anthers yellowish; filaments three-eighths inch long; pistil glabrous, longer than the stamens; stigma large.
Fruit intermediate in time and length of ripening season; one and nine-sixteenths inches in diameter, oval or slightly ovate, compressed, halves equal; cavity very shallow and narrow, abrupt; suture shallow, often a line; apex roundish or depressed; color dull greenish-yellow, with obscure green streaks, mottled and sometimes faintly tinged red on the sunny side, overspread with thick bloom; dots numerous, small, grayish, obscure, clustered about the apex; stem three-quarters inch long, pubescent, adhering well to the fruit; skin thin, tender, separating readily; flesh golden-yellow, juicy, firm but tender, sweet, mild; good to very good; stone nearly free, one inch by five-eighths inch in size, oval, flattened, with pitted surfaces; rather blunt at the base becoming acute in the largest fruits, very blunt at the apex; ventral suture wide, ridged; dorsal suture widely and deeply grooved.