Prunus

Plum-tree. In botany, a genus of the cla i cos and ria, order monogynia. Calyx inferior, five-cleft; petals five; drupe with a stone marked with slightly prominent seams. ‘Thirty-one species; natives of Kurope, Asia and America, six of our own country. The following are the cultivated species: 1. P. domestic a. | Common plums tree. This grows wild in out hedges with peduncles, mostly solitary: leaves lance-ovate, convolute when young, and unarmed branches, and gives birth to all the rich variety of our cultivated garden and orchard plum-trees, of which there are some hundreds. 2, P. instititia. Bullace-tree. Peduncles in pairs; leaves lance-ovate, convolute when young, villous underneath; branches ending in aspine, This also is common to our hedges; from twelve to fifteen feet high. It varies with black and white, or rather wax-coloured fruit; and also with a red, bitter, unpleasant fruit. 3. P. spinosa, Black-thorn.. | Sloe-tree. Peduncles solitary; leaves elliptic, lanceolate, pubescent underneath 5 fruit straight; branches spinous. Found also in our hedges and woods; and often very usefully employed in the formation of hedges. yckak Three sorts of plums, from the almost infinite variety of the plum-family, are ranked among the articles of the materia medic a; they. are all met with in the gardens of the country, but the shops are supplied with them moderately dried, from abroad, 1. The pruna brig no lens i a; the Brignole plum, prune, brought from Brignole in Provence; it is of a reddish yellow colour, and has a very grateful, sweet, subacid taste. 2. The pruna gallica; the common or French prune. The pruna. damascena, or damson. (See Damson.) All these fruits po e the same general qualities as the other summer fruits. The prunelloes, in which the sweetne has a greater mixture of acidity than in the other sorts, are used as mild refrigerants in fevers and other hot indispositions. The French prunes and damsons are the most emollient and laxative; they are often taken by. themselves to gently move the belly, where there is a tendency to inflammations. Decoctions of them afford a useful basis for laxative or purgative mixtures, and the pulp in substance for electuaries. 4. P. Arm eniac a. Apricot. Flowers se ile; leaves somewhat hearted. ' It is a native of the Levant; and in cultivation yields a great multitude of varieties. 5. P. cerasus, Common cherry-tree. Umhels nearly se ile; leaves ovate-lanceolate, folded when young. An elegant as well asa most useful fruit-tree. It differs from the plum in having the stone nearly globular, with the kernel of the same shape. A native of Asia and Europe. Its varieties are too numerous to be detailed. 6. P. avium. Small-fruited cherry-tree. In some counties called merries: It often grows to a large sized tree, and is found wild in our own woods. It has two or three varieties, Pye. 7. P. pad us, Common bird.cherry-tree, Found also in out woods; rising to the height of ten or twelve feet, with a trunk of nine or ten inches in diameter. Sometimes called the cluster cherry-tree, 8. P. rubra. Cornish bird cherry-tree. More than twenty feet high, with branches shorter and closer than in the last; fruit larger, and red when ripe. It is found wild in Armenia. g. P, Virgin i an a. Common American bird cherry-tree, Rises with a thick stem from ten to thirty feet high, dividing into many branches, with a dark purple bark. Fruit larger than in the preceding, black when ripe, and greedily devoured by birds. Wood beautifully veined svith black and white, and bears a good polish. A native of Virginia and other parts of North America. 10. P. Can a dens is, Canadian bird cherry- tree. Branches even; leaves slightly serrate, green on both sides. A native of North Ame- rica, 11. P. mahaleb. Perfumed cherry-tree. A low, crooked tree; wood red, hard, sweet-scent- ed; fruit black, yielding a bitter purple juice that stains, without being easily removed. native of Austria. In Ray it is called rock- cherry. 12. P. Carol in i an a. EXver-green bird cherry. Shrubby; not more than three feet high, with lateral branches, spreading on every side cover- ed with a brown bark. A native of South Ca- rolina, (3. P.lauro-cerasus. Common laurel. wide-spreading shrub, with a smooth brown bark; flowers racemed, calyx ovate, petals white, filaments about eighteen; leaves ever- green, with two glands on the back above the petioles: fruit resembling a black cherry both in its external and internal structure. A native of the Levant: flowers in April. 14. P. Lusitanica. Portugal laurel. Stem arboraceous, rising upwards of twenty feet, branchy, with a shining purplish bark; leaves evergreen, bright; flowers in long bunches from the sides of the branches, white in colour; berries oval, pulpy, at first.green, then red, and when ripe very dark purple; smaller than those of the last sort, and narrower at the end: flowers in June; and is one of the most beautiful evergreen shrubs we po e . A native of Portugal,. Plums are all propagated by budding or grafting upon stocks of the stoutest wild sorts. Budding answers best, as the incision is apt to throw forth a great deal of gum: the tree should be no more than one year’s growth from the bud when transplanted; if beyond this it will. be subject to canker, or at least produce only two or three luxuriant branches. If the tree be meant for wails, the whole management of planting and pruning will be the same as that. for peaches, Should the walls against which they are to be planted below, they must be placed thirty feet asunder, but if high, twenty feet will be sufficient, with an east or south-east aspect: the soil should be midway between one very moist and very dry. Plums, with proper care, succeed very well» as espaliers or standards, but the fruit will not be so rich. It is a common error to be too free with the knife in winter pruning, in which the extremities of all the branches are cut off; the consequence of this is, that there is a surplus of young shoots produced, and the fruit becomes small and impoverished. Of the apricot there are several varieties which ‘may be propagated by budding on plum-stocks. These trees may also be planted in October, against walls with aa east or west aspect, in_ borders of fresh earth, from a pasture-ground; they may stand at the distances directed in the — culture of the plum, and let the ground round the roots be covered with rotten dung, to keep out the frost, About the beginning of March you must cut off the head of the tree, and_ shorten it to about four or five eyes above the bud, so that the sloping side may be towards the wall, taking care not to disturb the root. spring, if the weather be dry, the trees must be gently refreshed with water, and some turf or. other mulch should be laid round their roots, Let the new branches be nailed to the wall in an horizontal position, and such shoots as ar produced fore-right must be entirely displaced; at Michael mas unnail the branches, and shorten. them in proportion to their strength; after which nail them as horizontally as po ible. The second and third year the trees may have: nearly the same management. There are several varieties of the cherry-tree usually cultivated in fruit-gardens. They are all propagated by binding or grafting the seve- ral kinds into stocks of the black or wild red cherries, which are strong shooters, and of a longer dtration than any of the garden kinds, PT The stones of these two kinds are sown ina bed of light sandy earth in autumn, and the young stocks produced from them are to remain where they rise till the second autumn after their sowing, when in October they should be planted out into a rich earth, at three feet distance from row to row, and at’about ten inches distance in the rows. The second year after the planting out, they will be fit to bud, if they are intended for dwarfs, but if they are intended for standards, they will not be tall enough till the fourth year; for they should be budded or grafted near six feet from the ground. The grafting is usually performed in summer, and the head of the stock is to be cut off in the beginning of the March following, about six inches above the bud; and if the bud has shot well, and there is any fear of its being displaced by winds, it must be gently tied up to the part of the stock left above it. The autumn afterwards these trees will be fit to remove, and be set where they are to remain; or they may be left two years, Many, when they plant these ‘trees in their places, lop off a great part of their heads, but this is an injury that often kills them; and when they escape, they seldom get well over it for four or five years. If the trees are intended for walls, it is advisable to plant dwarfs between the standards, that these may cover the lower part of the wall, while the others spread over the upper part; and when the dwarfs rise to fill the whole walls, the standards should be taken entirely away. When these trees are taken up from the nursery, the dead fibres of the roots inust be carefully taken off, and the upper part of the stock which is above the bud, must be cut off close down to the back part of it: the bud must be placed directly from the wall. Cherry-trees thrive best on a dry hazly loam, and in a gravelly soil are very subjett to blights, and seldom stand long good. They should be placed at fourteen feet asunder, with a standard tree between each two. In pruning these trees, their shoots should never be shortened, for they mostly produce their fruit from their extreme part. All the fore-right shoots are to be displaced, and the others trained horizontally; and where there is a vacancy in the wall, the branches being shortened, will throw up a shoot or two to fill it. Of the cherry-laurel there are several sorts cultivated in the gardens about London: they are all propagated by sowing the berries, or by laying down the tender branches, which will take root in one year’s time, and may then be transplanted into beds for a year or two, or even placed at once where they are to remain. If they are to. be raised by sowing, the berries must be gathered when ripe, which is in January, and kept in dry sand till the beginning of March, when they must be sown in a hed of rich dry earth, well sheltered from the north and east winds. The bed must be levelled, and then furrows of an inch deep made along it; at eight inches distance; into these the berries are to be dropped about two inches asunder, and covered with earth; and if the season prove very dry they must be watered: they will come up in about two months, and should suffered to remain in these beds two years. They should then be transplanted into a bed of earth well dug, and set at eighteen inches asunder; this should be done in Apiil, and they should be well watered, and the ground covered with some muck about their roots. They must be trained up straight, by tying them to stakes, and their under shoots pruned off, to make them advance in height. These trees are proper to plant on the warm sides of hills, where they may be sheltered from the north and north-east winds. In open situations the laure]-tree will sometimes indeed lose all its verdure in severe winters, and appear dead, and many trees have on this occasion been dug up and burnt; but this is a rash and very wrong practice; for usually, if they are suffered to remain they shoot freely again, and after another season are found as lively as ever. 782 783