“The fruit gathered from the wild trees was of remarkably fine quality, considering the conditions under which it grew. The plums were quite uniformly large—I would say from memory that they often reached three-fourths of an inch to an inch in diameter. They were thin-skinned and of good flavor, not having the unpleasant astringency of the wild Americana plums, which were also sometimes gathered. They were excellent for canning and made the finest of jelly.
“Naturally, the settlers who went every year to the sand hills for plums brought back trees to plant in the gardens they were opening. Almost every farm within the range mentioned above had a few or many of the dwarf trees growing. Some of these were fruitful and worth their room, but most of them have now died out, or are neglected and forgotten. This is because people have paid no attention to their selection, propagation and cultivation. Further than this, however, the sand plum has often failed signally to come up to its record when transferred to cultivation. It seems not to adapt itself readily to a wide diversity of soils and conditions.”
The sub-species is easily mistaken for the species; in herbarium specimens it is almost impossible to distinguish between them, but in general the Sand plum differs from Angustifolia in its dwarfer habit, shorter-jointed, zigzag, ashy-gray branches, smaller but thicker leaves, larger, thicker skinned and better flavored fruit which ripens later, and in a smaller and somewhat differently marked stone. In distinguishing the two groups some allowance must be made for the adaptability of plums to different environments.
PRUNUS ANGUSTIFOLIA VARIANS Wight and Hedrick
Plant a small tree, attaining a height of twenty-five feet; trunk small but well-defined; branches spreading, bushy, sometimes armed with spinescent branchlets; young wood slender, more or less zigzag, usually glabrous, glossy, reddish but approaching a chestnut-brown; lenticels few, scattered, yellowish, raised.
Leaves oblong, oval-lanceolate or rarely slightly obovate-lanceolate, one and one-fifth to two and one-fifth inches long, three-quarters to one inch broad, gradually narrowed at the base, acute at the apex; margins very minutely glandular-serrate; upper surface glabrous and somewhat lustrous; lower surface paler, glabrous or sparingly hairy along the midrib and in the axils of the lateral veins; petioles slender, usually reddish, about one-half inch long, pubescent along the upper side, eglandular or sometimes with one or two glands at the apex; stipules small, linear and glandular-dentate.
Flowers appearing from early in March and before the leaves in the South, to the middle of April and with the leaves in the North, in dried specimens about one-half inch broad; pedicels three-eighths to one-half inch long, glabrous; calyx campanulate, the tube glabrous; calyx-lobes usually shorter than the tube, oblong and obtuse, glabrous on the outer surface, glabrous or sometimes sparingly pubescent on the inner, the margin ciliate, eglandular; petals obovate, gradually narrowed toward the base, erose or entire toward the apex.
Fruit globose or sub-globose, varying from red to yellow, usually with a light bloom; stone about one-half inch long, two-fifths inch broad, turgid, ovoid to elliptic-oblong, obscurely pointed at the apex or sometimes slightly obtuse, truncate or obliquely truncate at the base, grooved on the dorsal edge, ventral edge with a narrow, thickened and slightly grooved wing, the surfaces irregularly roughened.
Yellow Transparent may be considered a typical variety. Type specimens in the Economic Collection of the Department of Agriculture were collected at the Eastern Shore Nurseries of J. W. Kerr, Denton, Maryland, (flowers) I. Tidestrom, April, 1910; (foliage and fruit) P. L. Ricker No. 2933, June 29, 1909.
In the wild, Prunus angustifolia varians forms dense thickets, the larger specimens attaining a height of ten or twelve feet. When budded and grown in the orchard it assumes the form of a small tree with well defined trunk and spreading branches, sometimes armed with rather slender spinescent branchlets. It is distinguished from the species by its usually more robust habit, by its having the young twigs less reddish and approaching a chestnut-brown in color, rather longer leaves, longer pediceled flowers, and by the stone in most cases being more pointed at the apex. Usually in more fertile soil than the species, it occurs locally from southern Oklahoma through eastern Texas southward possibly to the Colorado River, and probably westward to the Panhandle region. As yet, however, its distribution is not well defined.