Fruit very early, season of medium length; one and three-eighths inches by one and three-sixteenths inches in size, oval, halves equal; cavity small, narrow, shallow, rather abrupt; suture an indistinct line; apex roundish or pointed; color bright red, with thin bloom; dots few in number, light russet, somewhat conspicuous, clustered about the apex; the stem attached to a stem-like growth from the fruit-spurs gives the appearance on the tree of a jointed stem, very slender, three-quarters inch long, glabrous, not adhering well to the fruit; skin tough, slightly astringent, separating readily; flesh yellowish, very juicy and fibrous, tender and melting, sweet next the skin but sour at the center, sprightly; fair to good; stone adhering, seven-eighths inch by three-eighths inch in size, long and narrow-oval, flattened, slightly necked at the base, acute at the apex, roughened; ventral suture wide, blunt, ridged; dorsal suture acute or with a shallow, indistinct groove.
WILLARD
Prunus triflora
1. Ohio Hort. Soc. Rpt. 81. 1893. 2. Cornell Sta. Bul. 62:31. 1894. 3. Ibid. 106:64. 1896. 4. Ibid. 131:194. 1897. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 26. 1897. 6. Mich. Sta. Bul. 177:42, 43. 1899. 7. Cornell Sta. Bul. 175:134 fig. 27. 1899. 8. Rural N. Y. 57:515, 530, 595. 1898. 9. Waugh Plum Cult. 140. 1901. 10. Ga. Sta. Bul. 68:33. 1905. 11. Ill. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 420. 1905.
Botan No. 26 2, 3, 9. Botan 1. Botan No. 26 1. Willard Plum 1. Willard Japan 8.
Willard is about the earliest of the Triflora plums that can be shipped to the markets. When this is said all is said; as the variety has little else to recommend it, being very inferior in quality and having a reputation of being subject to shot-hole fungus. S. D. Willard, Geneva, New York, procured cions of this variety from California about 1888 from an importation made by Burbank from Japan. According to Willard, the plum was received under the name Botan and he labelled it No. 26 to avoid confusion; in 1893, it was named Willard by W. F. Heikes of the Huntsville Nurseries, Huntsville, Alabama. The American Pomological Society placed the variety on its fruit catalog list in 1897.
Tree medium to large, vigorous, vasiform, productive; leaves falling early, folded upward, oblanceolate, one and three-eighths inches wide, three and three-quarters inches long, thin, glabrous; margin finely and doubly serrate, with very small glands; petiole three-quarters inch long, with from one to five reniform glands usually on the stalk.
Fruit early, of medium size, roundish or somewhat oblong, blunt at the apex, dark red when well grown, covered with thick bloom; stem short, thick, adhering poorly to the fruit; skin sour; flesh greenish-yellow, rather firm, sweet, low in flavor; poor in quality; stone variable in adhesion, of medium size.