KIRKE
Prunus domestica
1. Pom. Mag. 3:111, Pl. 1830. 2. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 149. 1831. 3. Kenrick Am. Orch. 263. 1832. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 306. 1845. 5. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 281, 382. 1846. 6. Mag. Hort. 15:488 fig. 43. 1849. 7. Thompson Gard. Ass’t 518, Pl. 1. 1859. 8. Mas Le Verger 6:15, fig. 8. 1866-73. 9. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 36. 1875. 10. Pom. France 7: No. 26. 1871. 11. Flor. & Pom. 47. 1876. 12. Oberdieck Deut. Obst. Sort. 430. 1881. 13. Lauche Deut. Pom. 16, Pl. IV. 1882. 14. Hogg Fruit Man. 708. 1884. 15. Guide Prat. 154, 358. 1895. 16. Gard. Chron. 24:19. 1898. 17. Gaucher Pom. Prak. Obst. No. 96, Col. Pl. 1894. 18. Rev. Hort. 500. 1898. 19. Soc. Nat. Hort. France Pom. 536. 1904.
De Kirke 15. Kirke’s 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 17. Kirke’s 8, 10, 15, 17. Kirke’s Pflaume 12, 13. Kirke’s Pflaume 8, 10, 15, 17. Kirke’s Plum 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 16, 18. Kirk’s Plum 3, 5. Kirke 17. Kirke’s Plum 15, 17, 19. Prune de Kirke 18. Prune de Kirke 8, 10, 17. Prune Kirke 19.
All English descriptions of this variety rank it very high both as a dessert and a culinary plum. The variety stands well among the purple plums growing on the grounds of this Station, but since it has been grown in America eighty years, attaining a reputation only of being mediocre in most characters, it is probably not worth planting largely. It has many more worthy competitors in its class and season. Hogg, in the reference given, says the variety was introduced by Joseph Kirke, a nurseryman at Brompton, near London, who, he says, “told me he first saw it on a fruit stall near the Royal Exchange, and that he afterwards found the trees producing the fruit were in Norfolk, whence he obtained grafts and propagated it. But its true origin was in the grounds of Mr. Poupart, a market gardener at Brompton, on the spot now occupied by the lower end of Queen’s Gate and where it sprung up as a sucker from a tree which had been planted to screen an outbuilding. It was given to Mr. Kirke to be propagated and he sold it under the name it now bears.” The variety was introduced into America between 1830 and 1840. The American Pomological Society placed Kirke upon its list of rejected fruits in 1858, added it to the recommended list in 1875, and displaced it in 1899.
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, productive; branchlets with long internodes, dull, marked with yellowish-brown scarf-skin; leaf-buds large, long, pointed, free; leaves flattened, obovate or oval, one and three-quarters inches wide, three and five-eighths inches long, thick, dark green; margin crenate, eglandular or with small, dark glands; petiole one inch long, tinged red, glandless or with from one to four small, yellowish-green glands; blooming season intermediate, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, one inch across; borne on lateral spurs, singly or in pairs; filaments seven-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous, shorter than the stamens.
Fruit mid-season, ripening period long; about one and five-eighths inches in diameter, roundish-ovate, dark purplish-black, overspread with thick bloom; flesh greenish-yellow, fibrous, firm, sweet, mild and pleasant; good to very good; stone nearly free, one inch by three-quarters inch in size, ovate or oval, flattened, roughened and deeply pitted, tapering abruptly to a short, pointed apex; ventral suture narrow, with a short but distinct wing; dorsal suture with a wide groove.
LAFAYETTE
Prunus domestica
1. Prince Pom. Man. 2:96. 1832. 2. Tucker’s Gen. Farmer 3:153. 1839. 3. Elliott Fr. Book 427. 1854. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 222, 244. 1858. 5. Hogg Fruit Man. 368. 1866. 6. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 916. 1869. 7. Guide Prat. 160, 359. 1895.