Tree large, vigorous, hardy, productive, bearing annually; branches grayish, pubescent; leaves large, ovate, with crenate margins; flowers large, blooming early; petals roundish, imbricated.
Fruit early mid-season; medium in size, roundish-truncate, sides unequal; cavity usually shallow, wide; suture distinct; apex flattened; color dark or purplish-red, overspread with thin bloom, with a sprinkling of pale reddish dots; stem thick, short; skin tender; flesh yellowish, juicy, usually melting when properly matured, sweet near the skin but sprightly toward the center, pleasant-flavored; good; stone free, small, oval, flattened, with roughish surfaces.
OULLINS
OULLINS
Prunus domestica
1. Hogg Fruit Man. 374. 1866. 2. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 935. 1869. 3. Pom. France 7: No. 15. 1871. 4. Mas Le Verger 6:43. 1866-73. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 38. 1877. 6. Cat. Cong. Pom. France 366. 1887. 7. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 446. 1889. 8. Waugh Plum Cult. 117. 1901. 9. Thompson Gard. Ass’t 4:158. 1901.
Massot 6, 7. Monstrueuse d’Oullins 2, 7. Ouillin’s Gage 2, 7. Oullins Golden 1. Oullin’s Golden 2, 9. Oullin’s Golden 3, 4, 6, 7. Oullin’s Golden Gage 2, 7. Oullins Golden Gage 5. Oullin’s Green Gage 8. Prune-Massot 3. Reine-Claude d’Oullins 1, 2, 7, 9. Reine-Claude D’Oullins 3, 4, 6. Reine-Claude Prêcoce 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9. Reine-Claude von Oullins 7. Roi-Claude 3, 7.
Oullins came to America with the best of recommendations from European growers but it has fallen so far short of its reputation in Europe that it was dropped from the fruit list of the American Pomological Society and is gradually disappearing from cultivation. The fault is in the fruit which is but indifferent in quality for a plum of the Reine Claude group. In Europe the variety is rated as one of the best dessert sorts; in America it is hardly second-rate in quality. This difference may be due to differences in climate and soil; more probably, it is due to the greater number of better Reine Claude varieties grown in America with which it must compete. Hand, Jefferson, Washington, McLaughlin, Yellow Gage, Spaulding and Imperial Gage, the cream of the Reine Claude plums, are all Americans similar to Oullins but much better in quality. Oullins is hardly surpassed by any of its group in tree-characters and might well be used for breeding purposes as there are so few sorts of its kind having satisfactory trees.
This variety, probably a Reine Claude seedling, was found at Coligny, France, on the estate of M. Filliaud; it was propagated by M. Corsaint, gardener to the Baron de Toisy, near Cuiseaux (Department of Saone-et-Loire) and was introduced at Oullins (Department of Rhone) by M. Massot, nurseryman. The name is seldom spelled correctly in American fruit books, being either written with an apostrophe and s or with both left off, these spellings coming from the supposition that the name comes from that of a man, a mistake as the history shows. Oullins was placed on the American Pomological Society catalog fruit list in 1875 but was dropped when the catalog was revised in 1897.