The plums of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

P. myrobalan. 11. Loisleur Nouv. Duham. 5:184. 1812. 12. Koehne Deut. Dend. 316. 1893.

Tree small or a tree-like shrub, seldom exceeding twenty-five feet in height; branches upright, slender, twiggy, unarmed or sometimes thorny; branchlets soon glabrous, becoming yellow or chestnut-brown; lenticels few, small, orange in color, raised.

Winter-buds small, obtuse, short-pointed, pale reddish-brown; leaves small, short-ovate, apex acute, base cuneate or rounded, thin, membranaceous, texture firm, light green, nearly glabrous on both surfaces at maturity, though hairy along the rib on the lower surface, margins finely and closely serrate; petiole one-half or three-quarters of an inch long, slender, usually glabrous, glandless.

Flowers large, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, expanding very early or mostly with the leaves; calyx-lobes lanceolate, glandular, reflexed; petals white, sometimes with a blush, ovate-oblong or orbicular, the base contracted into a claw; borne singly, sometimes in pairs, in cymes on long, slender, glabrous peduncles.

Fruit small, one-half inch or a little more in diameter, globular or depressed-globular, cherry-like, red or yellow; skin thin and tender; flesh soft, juicy, sweet and rather pleasantly flavored; stone oval, short-pointed at both ends, somewhat turgid, ridged on one suture and grooved on the other.

Prunus cerasifera, the Cherry plum, first came to notice in pomological literature as the Myrobalan plum, a name used as early as the last half of the Sixteenth Century by Tabernæ-Montanus and given prominence in the Rariorum Plantarum Historum, published by Clusius in 1601. Why applied to this plum is not known. Myrobalan had long before been used, and is still, as the name of several plum-like fruits of the East Indies, not of the genus Prunus, which are used in tanning, dyeing, ink-making and embalming. Until Ehrhart gave it the name Prunus cerasifera in 1789 it was known as the Myrobalan plum by botanists, some of whom, and nearly all horticulturists, have continued the use of the name until the present time.

Not a few of the botanists who have used Myrobalan for this plum have called it a botanical variety of Prunus domestica. Among these were Linnaeus and Seringe. Others, as Loisleur and Poiteau, have preferred the name for the species as distinguished by Ehrhart.

Many of the early botanists, as Tournefort in 1700, Ehrhart in 1701, Loudon in 1806 and Loisleur in 1812, gave the origin of the Cerasifera plums as North America, but upon what authority does not appear. On the other hand many European botanists, including Linnaeus, gave the habitat as Europe or Asia. The supposition that this plum came from North America hardly needs discussion. The plum flora of this continent has been well enough studied so that it can be said that no plant that could by any possibility be the Cerasifera plum grows on this side of the Atlantic. Neither does it seem logical to consider this an off-shoot of Prunus domestica, for fruit and tree-characters are distinctly different, and for a member of the genus Prunus are remarkably constant. Moreover, there is abundant evidence to show that this is a distinct species and that its nativity is in the Turkish and nearby countries in Europe and Asia and that there it has been in cultivation for a long time.

It is very significant that in the old herbals and botanies a frequent name of this fruit is “the Turkish plum.” But more specific and almost conclusive proof is that two forms of plums belonging to this species are known to come from the Caucasus region. Prunus divaricata[86] is now considered by some botanists to be a synonym of Prunus cerasifera and by others to be a botanical variety of the last named species. Ledebour, who named it, found it in the Trans-Caucasian region. It differs from the type only in having much divided, wide-spreading and nearly prostrate branches. The Pissardi plum, a purple-leaved form of this species, originated in Persia. A plum now growing in the Arnold Arboretum raised from seed from Turkestan, presumably from wild stock, is identical with plants of Cerasifera of European origin. And, according to Schneider,[87] this plum is known in the wild state in Caucasus, Trans-Caucasus, northern Persia and Turkestan.