Plum
A plum is a fruit of the subgenus Prunus of the genus Prunus. The subgenus is distinguished from other subgenera in the shoots having terminal bud and solitary side buds, the flowers in groups of one to five together on short stems, the fruit having a groove running down one side and a smooth stone. Mature plum fruit may have a dusty-white waxy coating; this is an epicuticular wax coating and is known as "wax bloom". Dried plum fruits are called "dried plums" or prunes, although, in many countries, prunes are a distinct type of dried plum having a wrinkled appearance. Plums may have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans. Three of the most abundant cultivars are not found in the wild, only around human settlements: Prunus domestica has been traced to East European and Caucasian mountains, while Prunus salicina and Prunus simonii originated in Asia. Plum remains have been found in Neolithic age archaeological sites along with olives and figs; the name plum derived from Old English plume or "plum, plum tree," which extended from Germanic language or Middle Dutch, Latin prūnum, from Ancient Greek προῦμνον, believed to be a loanword from Asia Minor.
In the late 18th century, the word, was used to indicate "something desirable" in reference to tasty fruit pieces in desserts. Plums are a diverse group of species; the commercially important plum trees are medium-sized pruned to 5–6 metres height. The tree is of medium hardiness. Without pruning, the trees can reach 12 metres in spread across 10 metres, they blossom in different months in different parts of the world. Fruits are of medium size, between 2 and 7 centimetres in diameter, globose to oval; the flesh is juicy. The fruit's peel is smooth, with a natural waxy surface; the plum is a drupe. Plum cultivars include: Damson Greengage Mirabelle Satsuma plum Victoria Yellowgage or golden plum Different plum cultivars When it flowers in the early spring, a plum tree will be covered in blossoms, in a good year 50% of the flowers will be pollinated and become plums. Flowering starts after 80 growing degree days. If the weather is too dry, the plums will not develop past a certain stage, but will fall from the tree while still tiny, green buds, if it is unseasonably wet or if the plums are not harvested as soon as they are ripe, the fruit may develop a fungal condition called brown rot.
Brown rot is not toxic, some affected areas can be cut out of the fruit, but unless the rot is caught the fruit will no longer be edible. Plum is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera, including November moth, willow beauty and short-cloaked moth; the taste of the plum fruit ranges from sweet to tart. It can be eaten fresh or used in jam-making or other recipes. Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine. In central England, a cider-like alcoholic beverage known as plum jerkum is made from plums. Dried, salted plums are used as a snack, sometimes known as salao. Various flavors of dried plum are available at Chinese grocers and specialty stores worldwide, they tend to be much drier than the standard prune. Cream, ginseng and salty are among the common varieties. Licorice is used to intensify the flavor of these plums and is used to make salty plum drinks and toppings for shaved ice or baobing. Pickled plums are another type of preserve available in Asia and international specialty stores.
The Japanese variety, called umeboshi, is used for rice balls, called onigiri or omusubi. The ume, from which umeboshi are made, is more related, however, to the apricot than to the plum. In the Balkans, plum is converted into an alcoholic drink named slivovitz. A large number of plums, of the Damson variety, are grown in Hungary, where they are called szilva and are used to make lekvar, plum dumplings, other foods; as with many other members of the rose family, plum kernels contain cyanogenic glycosides, including amygdalin. Prune kernel oil is made from the fleshy inner part of the pit of the plum. Though not available commercially, the wood of plum trees is used by hobbyists and other private woodworkers for musical instruments, knife handles and similar small projects. Plum has many species, taxonomists differ on the count. Depending on the taxonomist, between 19 and 40 species of plum exist. From this diversity only two species, the hexaploid European plum and the diploid Japanese plum, are of worldwide commercial significance.
The origin of these commercially important species is uncertain but may have involved P. cerasifera and P. spinosa as ancestors. Other species of plum variously originated in Europe and America; the subgenus Prunus is divided into three sections: Sect. Prunus – leaves in bud rolled inwards.
Grafting
Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion while the lower part is called the rootstock; the success of this joining requires that the vascular tissue grow together and such joining is called inosculation. The technique is most used in asexual propagation of commercially grown plants for the horticultural and agricultural trades. In most cases, one plant is selected for its roots and this is called the stock or rootstock; the other plant is selected for its stems, flowers, or fruits and is called the scion or cion. The scion contains the desired genes to be duplicated in future production by the stock/scion plant. In stem grafting, a common grafting method, a shoot of a selected, desired plant cultivar is grafted onto the stock of another type. In another common form called bud grafting, a dormant side bud is grafted onto the stem of another stock plant, when it has inosculated it is encouraged to grow by pruning off the stem of the stock plant just above the newly grafted bud.
For successful grafting to take place, the vascular cambium tissues of the stock and scion plants must be placed in contact with each other. Both tissues must be kept alive until the graft has "taken" a period of a few weeks. Successful grafting only requires. Research conducted in Arabidopsis thaliana hypocotyls have shown that the connection of phloem takes place after 3 days of initial grafting, whereas the connection of xylem can take up to 7 days. Joints formed by grafting are not as strong as formed joints, so a physical weak point still occurs at the graft because only the newly formed tissues inosculate with each other; the existing structural tissue of the stock plant does not fuse. Precocity: The ability to induce fruitfulness without the need for completing the juvenile phase. Juvenility is the natural state through which a seedling plant must pass before it can become reproductive. In most fruiting trees, juvenility may last between 5 and 9 years, but in some tropical fruits e.g. Mangosteen, juvenility may be prolonged for up to 15 years.
Grafting of mature scions onto rootstocks can result in fruiting in as little as two years. Dwarfing: To induce dwarfing or cold tolerance or other characteristics to the scion. Most apple trees in modern orchards are grafted on to dwarf or semi-dwarf trees planted at high density, they provide more fruit per unit of land, higher quality fruit, reduce the danger of accidents by harvest crews working on ladders. Care must be taken when planting semi-dwarf trees. If such a tree is planted with the graft below the soil the scion portion can grow roots and the tree will still grow to its standard size. Ease of propagation: Because the scion is difficult to propagate vegetatively by other means, such as by cuttings. In this case, cuttings of an rooted plant are used to provide a rootstock. In some cases, the scion may be propagated, but grafting may still be used because it is commercially the most cost-effective way of raising a particular type of plant. Hybrid breeding: To speed maturity of hybrids in fruit tree breeding programs.
Hybrid seedlings may take ten or more years to fruit on their own roots. Grafting can reduce the time to shorten the breeding program. Hardiness: Because the scion has weak roots or the roots of the stock plants are tolerant of difficult conditions. E.g. many Western Australian plants are sensitive to dieback on heavy soils, common in urban gardens, are grafted onto hardier eastern Australian relatives. Grevilleas and eucalypts are examples. Sturdiness: To provide a strong, tall trunk for certain ornamental shrubs and trees. In these cases, a graft is made at a desired height on a stock plant with a strong stem; this is used to raise'standard' roses, which are rose bushes on a high stem, it is used for some ornamental trees, such as certain weeping cherries. Disease/pest resistance: In areas where soil-borne pests or pathogens would prevent the successful planting of the desired cultivar, the use of pest/disease tolerant rootstocks allow the production from the cultivar that would be otherwise unsuccessful.
A major example is the use of rootstocks in combating Phylloxera. Pollen source: To provide pollenizers. For example, in planted or badly planned apple orchards of a single variety, limbs of crab apple may be grafted at spaced intervals onto trees down rows, say every fourth tree; this takes care of pollen needs at blossom time, yet does not confuse pickers who might otherwise mix varieties while harvesting, as the mature crab apples are so distinct from other apple varieties. Repair: To repair damage to the trunk of a tree that would prohibit nutrient flow, such as stripping of the bark by rodents that girdles the trunk. In this case a bridge graft may be used to connect tissues receiving flow from the roots to tissues above the damage that have been severed from the flow. Where a water sprout, basal shoot or sapling of the same species is growing nearby, any of these can be grafted to the area above the damage by a method called inarch grafting; these alternatives to scions must be of the correct length to span the gap of the wound.
Changing cultivars: To change the cultivar in a fruit orchard to a more profitable cultivar, called top working. It may be faster to graft a new cultivar onto existing limbs of established trees than to replant an entire orchard. Maintain consistency: Apples are notorious for their genetic variability differing in multiple characteristics, such as, size and flavor, of fruits located on the same tree. In the commercia
Prunus × yedoensis
Prunus × yedoensis, Prunus × yedoensis'Somei-yoshino' or Yoshino cherry is a hybrid cherry of between Prunus speciosa as father plant and Prunus pendula f. ascendens as mother. It occurs as a natural or artificial hybrid in Japan and is now one of the most popular and planted cultivated flowering cherries in temperate climates worldwide, it is propagated by grafting to all over the world. Yoshino cherry is believed to be native to Yoshino District, Nara. In 1900, Kimei Fujino gave Yoshino cherry the name Somei-yoshino after the famous place of cultivation Somei village. In 1901, Yoshino cherry was given a scientific name Prunus yedoensis by Jinzō Matsumura. However, after Ernest Henry Wilson suggested Yoshino cherry is a hybrid between Prunus subhirtella var. ascendens and Prunus lannesiana in 1916, Yoshino cherry became to be called Prunus × yedoensis. As for the Korean native cherry called King cherry, given a scientific name Prunus yedoensis var. nudiflora by a German botanist Bernhard Adalbert Emil Koehne in 1912 continues to be called Prunus yedoensis.
Yoshino cherry has no scientific cultivar name because it is the original cultivar of this hybrid species Prunus × yedoensis. A new name,'Somei-yoshino' is proposed in accordance with other cultivars of Prunus × yedoensis. Prunus × yedoensis is a deciduous tree that at maturity grows to be 5 to 12 metres tall, it does well in full sun and moist but well drained soil. The leaves are alternately arranged, 6 to 15 centimetres long and 4 to 7 centimetres broad, with a serrated margin; the flowers emerge before the leaves in early spring. The flowers grow in clusters of six together; the fruit, a small cherry, is a globose drupe 8 to 10 millimetres in diameter. The fruit contain much concentrated red juice, which can stain clothing and brick; the fruit is only marginally sweet to the human palate. With its fragrant, light pink flowers, manageable size, elegant shape, the Yoshino cherry is used as an ornamental tree. Many cultivars have been selected. From the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji period and craftsman who made the village at Somei in Edo grew someiyoshino.
They first offered them as Yoshinozakura. This is sometimes rendered as'Somei-Yoshino'; the Yoshino cherry was introduced to Europe and North America in 1902. The National Cherry Blossom Festival is a spring celebration in Washington, D. C. commemorating the 1912 gift of Japanese cherry trees from Tokyo to the city of Washington. They are planted in the Tidal Basin park. Several of 2000 Japanese cherry trees given to the citizens of Toronto by the citizens of Tokyo in 1959 were planted in High Park. Most studies show that Yoshino cherry is a hybrid between Prunus speciosa and Prunus pendula f. ascendens. In 1916, Ernest Henry Wilson concluded that Yoshino cherry suggests a hybrid between Prunus subhirtella var. ascendens Wilson and Prunus lannesiana Wilson. It has many characters of the latter and in its venation and shape of the cupula resembles the former In 1963, Takenaka assumed that Yoshino cherry is a hybrid between Prunus lannesiana var. speciose and Prunus subhirtella var. pendula form ascendens.
In 1986, Takafumi Kaneko et al. carried out restriction endonuclease analysis on chloroplast ctDNA. Yoshino cherry showed no interplant variation of ctDNA and had the same ctDNA as P. pendula, differing from P. lannesiana by a single HindIII restriction site. This findings suggests. In 1995, Hideki Innan et al. conducted DNA fingerprinting study using different kinds of probes, M13 repeat sequence and 4 synthetic oligonucleotide and concluded that Yoshino cherry was produced only once through hybridization between Prunus lannesiana and Prunus pendula and that this particular hybrid plant has been spread vegetatively all over Japan, In 2014, Shuri Kato et al. conducted molecular analysis using nuclear simple sequence repeat polymorphisms to trace cultivar origins and Bayesian clustering based on the STRUCTURE analysis using SSR genotypes revealed that Yoshino cherry is a hybrid between Prunus pendula f. ascendens and Prunus lannesiana var. speciosa although there was a small and nonsignificant association with Prunus jamasakura.
The proportion of each species is Edo higan 47%, Oshima zakura 37%, jamasakura 11%. In 2015, Ikuo Nakamura et al. analyzed sequences of intron 19 and exon 20 of PolA1. One of two exon 20 sequences found in Yoshino cherry was the same as that of P. pendula, whereas the other sequence was shared with several taxa in seven wild species, including P. jamasakura and P. lannesiana. Yoshino cherry contained two different haplotypes of the intron 19 sequences. While another haplotype of Yoshino cherry was different from that of Edo higan by two SNPs but identical to one of two haplotypes of P. pendula ‘Komat
Cherry plum
Prunus cerasifera is a species of plum known by the common names cherry plum and myrobalan plum. It is native to Southeast Europe and Western Asia, is naturalised in the British Isles and scattered locations in North America. Wild types are large shrubs or small trees reaching 8– m tall, sometimes spiny, with glabrous, ovate deciduous leaves 3–7 cm long, it is one of the first European trees to flower in spring starting in mid-February before the leaves have opened. The flowers are about 2 cm across, with five petals and many stamens; the fruit is an edible drupe, 2–3 cm in diameter, ripening to yellow or red from early July to mid-September. They are self-fertile but can be pollinated by other Prunus varieties such as the Victoria plum; the plant propagates by seed or by suckering, is used as the rootstock for other Prunus species and cultivars. The cherry plum is a popular ornamental tree for garden and landscaping use, grown for its early flowering. Numerous cultivars have been developed, many of them selected for purple foliage, such as P cerasifera var pissardii L.
H. Bailey; the variety'Nigra' with black foliage and pink flowers, has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Prunus × cistena a hybrid of Prunus cerasifera and Prunus pumila, the sand cherry won the Award of Garden Merit; these purple-foliage forms have dark purple fruit, which make an attractive, intensely coloured jam. They can have pink flowers; the cultivar ` Thundercloud' has bright red foliage. Others, such as'Lindsayae', have green foliage; some kinds of purple-leaf plums are used for other forms of living sculpture. Cultivated cherry plums can have fruits and flowers in any of several colours; some varieties have sweet fruits that can be eaten fresh, while others are sour and better for making jam. Cherry plums are a key ingredient in Georgian cuisine where they are used to produce tkemali sauce, as well as a number of popular dishes, such as kharcho soup and chakapuli stew. List of plum dishes Prunus cerasifera in the CalPhotos Photo Database, University of California, Berkeley Prunus cerasifera - information, genetic conservation units and related resources.
European Forest Genetic Resources Programme
Greengage
The greengages are a group of cultivars of the common European plum. The first true greengage came from a green-fruited wild plum found in Iran that original greengage cultivar nowadays survives in an unchanged form as the cultivar Reine Claude Verte; the Oxford English Dictionary regards "gage" and "greengage" as synonyms. However, not all gages are green, some horticulturists make a distinction between the two words, with greengages as a variety of the gages, scientifically named Prunus domestica subsp. Italica var. claudiana. The gages otherwise include the large and purple to blackish but bright yellow round plums, as well as the ancient and little-known Austrian varieties Punze and Weinkriech. Greengage fruit are identified by smooth-textured, pale green flesh; the skin ranges in colour from green to yellowish, with a pale blue "blush" in some cultivars. Greengages are known for the rich, confectionery flavour, they are considered to be among the finest dessert plums. Greengage fruit originated in Iran.
"Green Gages" were first imported into England from France in 1724 by Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet, from whom they get their English name, though a greengage seed was found embedded in a 15th-c building in Hereford. The labels identifying the French plum trees were lost in transit to Gage's home at Hengrave Hall, near Bury St Edmunds. Soon after, greengages were cultivated in the American colonies being grown on the plantations of American presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. However, their cultivation in North America has declined since the 18th century; the name Reine Claude, by which they are known in France, is in honour of the French queen Claude, Duchess of Brittany. Greengages are called la bonne reine in France. Greengages are grown in particular in western Europe; the core of their range extends from France to southern England. In Germany, where they are called Reneklode or Ringlotte, numerous cultivars have been developed too. In Poland and the Czech Republic, they are known as ringle, in Hungary as ringló, in Slovakia as ringloty and in Portugal as "Raínha Cláudia".
They are grown for stewing in syrup to make a compote. In Portugal, they make up a delicacy invented by Dominican nuns in the 16th or 17th century in the town of Elvas, where they are boiled in a sugary syrup several times, over the course of several weeks, to be preserved whole in syrup or dried, coated in sugar and eaten either with a local dessert, "sericaia", made from eggs, milk and flour or eaten with rich cheeses. At least the green cultivars breed less true from seed. Several similar cultivars produced from seedlings are now available. Grown cultivars include: The fruit has inspired a film, The Greengage Summer, a 1961 British drama film set in France, it was based on the novel The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. One Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch involved a deranged self-defence instructor whose main hypothetical enemy was fresh fruit; when trying to get him to focus on more menacing foes, his exasperated students began ticking off the fruits they had bravely battled, including'greengages, lemons and mangoes in syrup!'
Peacotum
A peacotum is a peach/apricot/plum hybrid developed by Zaiger's Genetics, Inc. a company that develops novel fruit through hybridization. Peacotum is trademarked by Dave Wilson Nursery Inc. An application to trademark the name nectacotum in the United States for varieties derived from nectarine-type peaches was made in 2004 but abandoned. Nectaplum Pluot
Prunus
Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes the fruits plums, peaches, nectarines and almonds. Native to the northern temperate regions, there are 430 different species classified under Prunus. Many members of the genus are cultivated for their fruit and for decorative purposes. Prunus fruit are defined as drupes, or stone fruits, because the fleshy mesocarp surrounding the endocarp is edible. Most Prunus fruit and seeds are used in processing, such as jam production, drying or roasting. Members of the genus can be evergreen. A few species have spiny stems; the leaves are simple, alternate lanceolate and with nectaries on the leaf stalk. The flowers are white to pink, sometimes red, with five petals and five sepals. There are numerous stamens. Flowers are in umbels of two to six or sometimes more on racemes; the fruit is a fleshy drupe with a single large, hard-coated seed. Within the rose family Rosaceae, it was traditionally placed as a subfamily, the Amygdaloideae, but was sometimes placed in its own family, the Prunaceae.
More it has become apparent that Prunus evolved from within a much larger clade now called subfamily Amygdaloideae. In 1737, Carl Linnaeus used four genera to include the species of modern Prunus—Amygdalus, Cerasus and Padus—but simplified it to Amygdalus and Prunus in 1758. Since the various genera of Linnaeus and others have become subgenera and sections, as it is clearer that all the species are more related. Liberty Hyde Bailey says: "The numerous forms grade into each other so imperceptibly and inextricably that the genus cannot be broken up into species." A recent DNA study of 48 species concluded that Prunus is monophyletic and is descended from some Eurasian ancestor. Historical treatments break the genus into several different genera, but this segregation is not widely recognised other than at the subgeneric rank. ITIS recognises just the single genus Prunus, with an open list of species, all of which are given at List of Prunus species. One standard modern treatment of the subgenera derives from the work of Alfred Rehder in 1940.
Rehder hypothesized five subgenera: Amygdalus, Cerasus and Laurocerasus. To them C. Ingram added Lithocerasus; the six subgenera are described as follows: Prunus subgenera: Subgenus Amygdalus and peaches: axillary buds in threes. Subgenus Prunus and apricots: axillary buds solitary. Now known to be polyphyletic. Subgenus Laurocerasus, cherry-laurels: evergreen. Prunus can be divided into two clades: Cerasus-Laurocerasus-Padus, yet another study adds Emplectocladus as a subgenus to the former. The lists below include most of the better-known species; the genus Prunus includes the almond, the nectarine and peach, several species of apricots, of cherries, of plums, all of which have cultivars developed for commercial fruit and nut production. The almond is not a true nut, the edible part is the seed. Other species are cultivated or used for their seed and fruit. A number of species and cultivars are grown as ornamental plants for their profusion of flowers, sometimes for ornamental foliage and shape, for their bark.
The Tree of 40 Fruit has forty varieties grafted on to one rootstock. Species such as blackthorn, are grown for hedging, game cover, other utilitarian purposes; the wood of some species is prized as a furniture and cabinetry timber in North America. Many species produce an aromatic resin from wounds in the trunk. Other minor uses include dye production. Pygeum, a herbal remedy containing extracts from the bark of Prunus africana, is used as to alleviate some of the discomfort caused by inflammation in patients suffering from benign prostatic hyperplasia. Prunus species are food plants for the larvae of a large number of Lepidoptera species. Prunus species are included in
