McLaughlin stands well up with the best of plums in quality and when well grown is very attractive in appearance. Its flesh is sweet and yet not so sweet as to cloy the appetite; in flavor it is rich and delicate and while somewhat like that of Reine Claude, is different, so that the variety has a taste quite of its own; though the juice is abundant, the flesh is not watery; the texture is neither too coarse nor too fine, too fibrous nor too mealy, but in a fruit rightly matured is most pleasantly melting. There are few other plums in which the characters pleasing to the taste exist in such nice proportions. McLaughlin is a little smaller than some other plums of its group, but is quite large enough for a dessert plum. Unless at its best, it is not as attractive in color as Jefferson, Washington, Reine Claude and some others of its type, but at its very best, it is unsurpassed by any other plum in coloring; it has in perfection the delicate yellow skin which belongs to the Reine Claudes upon which is marbled tints of white, yellow and crimson, the blending of which the illustration shows but poorly. The fruit of McLaughlin has its imperfections, however. The flesh clings tenaciously to the stone, is too melting to keep or ship well and rots badly on the tree. These defects debar the variety in America, with present market demands, from commercial plantations. The tree is above the average in size and vigor and is as hardy as any, more so than most of the Reine Claude varieties. It comes in bearing early and is rather productive. The place for this plum, from the summary of its characters, is apparent at once—in the home orchard and in the collection of the fruit connoisseur.
McLaughlin was raised by James McLaughlin of Bangor, Maine, first fruiting about 1840. The parentage of the variety is disputed, but no one doubts that it contains Reine Claude blood, though the tree is too vigorous to have been raised from the Reine Claude self-pollinated. Judging from the tree-characters, it may have sprung from the Washington or Imperial Gage fertilized by the Reine Claude. The American Pomological Society, in 1852, placed the McLaughlin with the plums that promised well, and at the next meeting added it to the recommended list.
Tree of medium size, variable in vigor, spreading, open-topped, hardy, medium to productive; branches stocky, ash-gray, smooth, with small, indistinct lenticels; branchlets few, thick, short, with short internodes, greenish-red changing to brownish-drab, lightly pubescent, with numerous, small lenticels; leaf-buds above medium in size, long, pointed, appressed; leaf-scars swollen.
Leaves oval, two inches wide, three and one-half inches long, thick; upper surface dark green, glossy, covered with fine hairs; lower surface pale green, pubescent; apex abruptly pointed, base acute, margin crenate, with small, black glands; petiole five-eighths inch long, thick, pubescent, tinged red, with one or two small, globose, yellowish glands usually at the base of the leaf.
Season of bloom intermediate, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, fifteen-sixteenths inch across, white, with yellow tinge near the apex of the petals; borne on lateral spurs and buds, singly or in pairs; pedicels one-half inch long, thick, very pubescent, greenish; calyx-tube green, obconic, pubescent; calyx-lobes narrow, obtuse, sparingly pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate and with marginal hairs, reflexed; petals obovate, crenate, tapering below to short, broad claws; anthers yellowish; filaments one-quarter inch long; pistil glabrous except at the ovary, longer than the stamens.
Fruit early, season short; one and five-eighths inches by one and seven-eighths inches in size, roundish-oblate, compressed, halves equal; cavity shallow, narrow, abrupt; suture shallow; apex flattened or depressed; color greenish-yellow, blushed and mottled with red, overspread with thick bloom; dots numerous, small, light colored; stem thick, three-quarters inch long, pubescent, adhering well to the fruit, surrounded at the cavity by a fleshy ring; skin tough, slightly adhering; flesh light yellow, juicy, sweet, mild and pleasant; very good; stone clinging, one inch by three-quarters inch in size, irregular broad-oval, very blunt at the base and apex, heavily wrinkled and deeply pitted; ventral suture narrow, distinctly furrowed, winged; dorsal suture widely and deeply grooved.
MIDDLEBURG
MIDDLEBURG