Red Diaper is of historical value only, as it is now rarely found. It does not seem to have been known as long as Violet Diaper and may be an off-shoot of the older variety. It probably originated in France, one of its synonyms, Roche Corbon, having been derived from a small village near Tours. The Mimms plum said to have been raised from a stone of the Blue Perdrigon about 1800 by Henry Browne, North Mimms Place, Hertfordshire, England, and the Imperial Diadem said to be a seedling of about the same date raised at Duckenfield, near Manchester, England, are identical with Red Diaper in spite of their supposed separate origin. The Chypre, or Prune de Chypre, thought by some to be a synonym of this variety, is undoubtedly distinct, as it is a clingstone and is earlier. The following description is compiled.
Tree of slow growth in the nursery, hardy, vigorous and productive in the orchard. Fruit mid-season; large, obovate; cavity slight; stem one-half inch in length; skin brownish-red; bloom thin; dots very numerous, brownish, conspicuous; flesh greenish-yellow, firm, fine-grained, sweet; good; stone small, free.
RED JUNE
Prunus triflora
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 106. 1891. 2. Cornell Sta. Bul. 62:28. 1894. 3. Ga. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 95. 1895. 4. Cornell Sta. Bul. 106:60. 1896. 5. Ala. Col. Sta. Bul. 85:444. 1897. 6. Cornell Sta. Bul. 139:45. 1897. 7. Rural N. Y. 56:615. 1897. 8. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 26. 1897. 9. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:242, 243, 249, 250. 1899. 10. Cornell Sta. Bul. 175:136. 1899. 11. U. S. D. A. Rpt. 386. 1901. 12. Waugh Plum Cult. 140. 1901. 13. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 324. 1903. 14. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:37. 1903. 15. Mass. Sta. Ann. Rpt. 17:160. 1905. 16. Md. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 85. 1905. 17. Ga. Sta. Bul. 68:5, 32. 1905.
Botan 14. Hytankayo 11. Long Fruit 3. Nagate no Botankyo 10, 11, 17. Red Nagate 1, 2, 3, 6, 9. Red Nagate 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 17. Red June 2, 3. Shiro Smomo 2, 4, 7, 11, 12, 14. Shiro Smomo 9.
Red June is variously estimated by fruit-growers and pomologists. A concensus of the opinions of those who have had actual experience with the variety shows that it closely follows Abundance and Burbank in popularity among the Trifloras. The variety is distinguished from all other plums by its fruit-characters; the plums are distinctly cordate in shape with a deep cavity and a very pointed apex; the color is a mottled garnet-red overlaid with thin but very distinct and delicate bloom; the flesh is a light yellow, firm enough to endure transportation well, peculiarly aromatized, sweetish and not wholly agreeable in flavor and ranking rather low in quality; the stone adheres tightly to the flesh. The trees are large, vigorous, spreading, hardy, healthy and productive—very good for the species to which the variety belongs. Other good qualities of the variety are that it blooms late for a Triflora, and that the fruits are comparatively immune to curculio and brown-rot and hang to the trees exceptionally well for an early plum. This is one of the Trifloras that varies in season of ripening, a peculiarity of several of the varieties of this species, but usually the fruits ripen a week or more before Abundance. Red June is reported to be somewhat self-sterile and in need of cross-pollination. This variety ought to have value as an early market plum in New York.
Red June was imported from Japan by H. H. Berger and Company, San Francisco, California, under the name Shiro Smomo, about 1887. Stark Brothers, Louisiana, Missouri, obtained the variety in 1892 and introduced it as the Red June in 1893. In 1897 it was added to the fruit catalog list of the American Pomological Society. The nomenclature of this variety is much confused. The true Japanese Red Nagate (Red Nagate is one of the synonyms of Red June) has red flesh while this one has not; this variety, to which the name Shiro Smomo is most often applied, is not a Smomo plum nor is it white, (Shiro is the Japanese for white) affording another instance of the confusion in the American application of the Japanese names of the Triflora plums.
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, productive, healthy; branches rough, thorny, dark brown, with numerous lenticels of medium size; branchlets slender, long, with short internodes, dark brown, marked with considerable scarf-skin, glabrous, with numerous large, raised lenticels; leaf-buds small, medium in length, conical, free.
Leaves folded upward, oblanceolate, one inch wide, two and three-quarters inches long, thin; upper surface glabrous, with a lightly grooved midrib; lower surface light green, thinly pubescent along the midrib and larger veins which are tinged red; apex taper-pointed, base acuminate, margin finely serrate, with small glands; petiole one-half inch long, slender, tinged red, slightly hairy along one side, with from one to three small, brown glands usually at the base of the leaf.