Fruit maturing in late summer, three-quarters inch long, oblong, with but a trace of cavity and suture, dark purple with light bloom; flesh thin, sour and very astringent; skin thick, tough; scarcely edible; stone ovoid, long, flat, roughish, pointed at both ends with a groove on one edge and a grooved ridge on the other.
In 1898 Small described Prunus injucunda as a new species from what had hitherto been considered a part of Prunus umbellata. Sargent, whom we follow, gives it as a botanical variety of Prunus umbellata. Small says that the two differ as follows: Prunus injucunda has “a more rigid habit and the foliage, including the branchlets, is velvety tomentose. In place of the sub-globose drupe of Prunus umbellata we find an oblong fruit of an extremely bitter taste. The stone is correspondingly lengthened.” To these differences may be added tomentose or pubescent leaves, hairy umbels, and tomentose calyx and pistil, as characters not found in Prunus umbellata though there are occasional pubescent individuals in the species.
Small first collected Prunus injucunda in sandy soil in the granite districts about the base of Little Stone Mountain, Georgia, and reports it as occurring about Stone Mountain. Mohr reports the plant on rocky summits and among the sandstone cliffs of Alpine Mountain, Talladego County, Alabama, as a low, unsightly shrub, four feet in height, with short, straggling branches. The wild fruit is seldom fit for domestic use and with so much better material in other species the fruit-grower can hardly afford to spend time in an attempt to domesticate this one.
16. PRUNUS MITIS Beadle
1. Beadle Bilt. Bot. Stud. 1:162. 1902. 2. Britton and Brown N. Am. Trees 489. 1908.
Tree small, maximum height twenty-five feet; bark dark brown or reddish-gray; branches spreading or ascending, usually unarmed; branchlets glabrous, glaucous; leaves thin, elliptic, oblong-lanceolate, sometimes ovate or obovate, apex acute or acuminate, base narrow or rounded, margin sharply serrate; petioles less than one-half inch, densely pubescent, with two glands at or on the base of the leaf; upper surface bright green, finely pubescent, lower surface paler, also pubescent and with a prominent midrib and veins.
Flowers of medium size, appearing before the leaves; borne in sub-sessile, two to six-flowered umbels; calyx-tube obconic, smooth, its lobes triangular, pubescent on the outer and velvety on the inner surface; petals white, obovate, clawed; pedicels slender, smooth, three-quarters inch long.
Fruit ripening in mid-summer; over one-half inch in length, oblong, dark purple with a heavy bloom; stone ovoid or oval, flattened, nearly one-half inch long, pointed at both ends especially at the apex, and crested on one edge.
Prunus mitis is a newly named species from Alabama, common in dry soils in the regions where it is found wild. The species has many characters in common with Prunus umbellata to which it is so closely related that it is difficult to distinguish the two in herbarium specimens. Although nothing is yet known of its horticultural possibilities the apparent relationship does not indicate much value in the plum for the cultivator.