WILD GOOSE
Prunus munsoniana
1. Gard. Mon. 9:105. 1867. 2. Am. Jour. Hort. 5:147. 1869. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 60. 1869. 4. Am. Hort. An. 78. 1870. 5. Country Gent. 35:166. 1870. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 116. 1871. 7. Ibid. 44. 1875. 8. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 36. 1875. 9. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 152, 153, 154. 1883. 10. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 454. 1889. 11. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:51, fig. 3, 86. 1892. 12. Tex. Sta. Bul. 32:482, fig. 4. 1894. 13. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 10:99, 104. 1897. 14. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:24, 63 fig. 31. 1897. 15. Ala. Col. Sta. Bul. 112:178. 1900. 16. Waugh Plum Cult. 189, 190. 1901. 17. Ga. Sta. Bul. 67:284. 1904. 18. S. Dak. Sta. Bul. 93:42. 1905. 19. Ohio Sta. Bul. 162:258. 1905.
Nolen Plum 10. Suwanee 9. Suwanee ?16.
Wild Goose is the first of the native plums to be generally grown as a distinct variety though Miner was first known and named. Wild Goose, too, is probably a parent of more sorts than any other variety of the several cultivated native species, most of its offspring so strongly resembling it that its name has been given to a group of its closely related sorts. In spite of the great number of native plums that have been introduced in recent years, Wild Goose is still a favorite—probably more trees of it are now cultivated than of any other native plum. Its good qualities are: bright attractive color; tender and melting flesh with a sprightly and refreshing flavor; a tough skin which fits the variety well for shipment and long-keeping; comparative freedom from brown-rot and curculio and a large, hardy, healthy and, when cross-pollinated, a very productive tree. Wild Goose has been more extensively planted in New York than any other plum of its kind and in a few cases has proved a fairly profitable commercial sort. It is doubtful if it is now the best of its species for this State but it can at least be recommended for home plantings and in some localities as a market plum. Wherever planted there should be some other native sort blooming at the same time for cross-pollination.
The following account of the origin of this variety, more romantic than credible, is told with several variations. About 1820, M. E. McCance, who lived near Nashville, Tennessee, shot a wild goose on his farm; his wife, in dressing the goose, found a plum seed in the craw, which, planted in the garden, produced the Wild Goose tree. The merits of the new fruit seem to have been discovered by J. S. Downer, Fairview, Kentucky, and James Harvey of Columbia, Tennessee. The former propagated, named and began the dissemination of Wild Goose to fruit-growers. Many varieties have been sent out for this plum and much confusion has arisen as to what the true variety is. Since the characters of Wild Goose, even when cross-pollinated, are transmitted to its offspring to a remarkable degree, the name now applies to a class of plums rather than to a variety. The American Pomological Society placed this variety on the fruit catalog list of the Society in 1875, dropped it in 1891, and replaced it in 1897.
Tree very large and vigorous, wide-spreading, flat-topped, hardy in New York, productive; branches rough and shaggy, dark ash-gray, with numerous, large, elongated lenticels; branchlets slender, long, with internodes of medium length, greenish-red changing to dull reddish-brown, glossy, glabrous, with many, conspicuous, large, raised lenticels; leaf-buds small, short, obtuse, free.
Leaves folded upward, lanceolate, peach-like, four and one-quarter inches long, one and one-half inches wide, thin; upper surface light or dark green changing to reddish late in the season, smooth, glabrous, with a grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, glabrous except along the midrib and larger veins; apex taper-pointed, base abrupt, margin finely serrate, with small, reddish-black glands; petiole five-eighths inch long, slender, pubescent along one side, tinged red, glandless or with from one to six globose, yellow or reddish-brown glands on the stalk and base of the leaf.
Blooming season late and long; flowers appearing after the leaves, three-quarters inch across, white, with disagreeable odor; borne in clusters on lateral buds and spurs, in threes or fours; pedicels five-eighths inch long, slender, glabrous, green; calyx-tube greenish, narrowly campanulate; calyx-lobes narrow, glabrous on the outer surface, lightly pubescent within, entire, heavily pubescent and with reddish glands on the margin, erect; petals ovate, entire, long and narrowly clawed; anthers yellow, with a tinge of red; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous, equal to the stamens in length.