Leaves folded backward, oval or obovate, one and three-quarters inches wide, three and three-quarters inches long; upper surface dark green, glabrous except for the few hairs on the deeply and narrowly grooved midrib; lower surface pubescent; apex acute or obtuse, base acute; petiole five-eighths inch long, thick, pubescent, faintly tinged red, glandless or with one or two small, globose, greenish-brown glands usually at the base of the leaf.
Blooming season early, short; flowers appearing with the leaves, seven-eighths inch across, white; borne on lateral buds, usually in pairs; pedicels one-half inch long, thick, pubescent, greenish; calyx-tube green, with roughened surface, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes acute, lightly pubescent, serrate, with many glands and marginal hairs, reflexed; petals broadly oval, crenate, short-clawed; anthers bright yellow; filaments nearly five-sixteenths inch long; pistil pubescent at the base, much longer than the stamens.
Fruit early, season short; one and five-eighths inches by one and three-eighths inches in size, oval, swollen on the suture side, compressed, halves unequal; cavity narrow, abrupt, regular; suture shallow, often an indistinct line; apex roundish; color dark purplish-black, covered with thick bloom; dots numerous, variable in size, russet, inconspicuous; stem five-eighths inch long, pubescent, adhering well to the fruit; skin of medium thickness and toughness, somewhat sour, separating readily; flesh greenish-yellow, juicy, tender, sweet, mild; good; stone clinging, one inch by five-eighths inch in size, irregular-oval, flattened, obliquely necked; apex acute; surfaces pitted, roughish; ventral suture narrow, prominent, not winged; dorsal suture narrowly and deeply grooved.
TRANSPARENT
Prunus domestica
1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 395. 1857. 2. Flor. & Pom. 56, Col. Pl. fig. 1862. 3. Hogg Fruit Man. 383. 1866. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 950. 1869. 5. Jour. Hort. N. S. 17:258. 1869. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 91. 1869. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 24. 1871. 8. Pom. France 7: No. 25. 1871. 9. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:31, fig. 16. 1873. 10. Cat. Cong. Pom. France 365. 1887. 11. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 428. 1889. 12. Guide Prat. 154, 364. 1895. 13. Nicholson Dict. Gard. 3:166. 14. Waugh Plum Cult. 124. 1901. 15. Soc. Nat. Hort. France Pom. 554 fig. 1904.
Diaphane 4, 12. Diaphane Lafay 4. Durchscheinende Reineclaude 9, 12. Durchscheinende Reine-Claude 11. Prune Diaphane 9. Prune Diaphane Laffay 4, 11. Reine-Claude De Guigne 9. Reine-Claude Diaphane 1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15. Reine-Claude Diaphane 2, 3, 4, 5, 11. Reine-Claude Transparente 9, 11, 12, 15. Reine-Claude Transparent 4. Transparent Green Gage 6. Transparent Gage 3, 4, 7, 8, 13. Transparent Gage 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15. Transparent Gage Plum 2, 5.
In Europe Transparent is considered one of the best of all dessert plums but either it does not do as well in America or the American bred plums of the Reine Claude group, to which this variety belongs, are much better on this continent than in the Old World. At any rate in our soil and climate there are a dozen or more Reine Claude plums as good or better in quality than Transparent and much superior in other characters. It is, however, worth planting by the connoisseur for its quality and because of the transparency of skin—in the latter respect it is unique among Domestica plums. The flower-buds of this variety have a remarkable tendency to produce leaves in the place of floral organs.
Transparent is an old French variety. M. Lafay, a rose-grower at Bellevue, near Paris, raised it from the seed of the Reine Claude and named it Reine Claude Diaphane. It was grown previous to 1836, for, during this year, Thomas Rivers of England, while visiting M. Lafay, was told of its origin. In 1871, the American Pomological Society listed Transparent in its catalog as worthy of culture. The color of this variety leads to the suspicion that Reine Claude is not the only parent.
Tree large, vigorous, spreading, open-topped, hardy, productive; branches slender, ash-gray, roughish towards the trunk, with small lenticels; branchlets above medium in thickness, short, with internodes of average length, green changing to brownish-red often retaining some green, dull, pubescent, with small lenticels; leaf-buds of medium size and length, conical, somewhat appressed.