Get ebook downloads in full at ebookmeta.

com

Python Data Analysis Numpy, Matplotlib and Pandas

Bernd Klein

https://ebookmeta.com/product/python-data-analysis-numpy-
matplotlib-and-pandas-bernd-klein/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWNLOAD NOW

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebookmeta.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Python Data Analytics: With Pandas, NumPy, and Matplotlib,

3rd Edition Fabio Nelli

https://ebookmeta.com/product/python-data-analytics-with-pandas-numpy-
and-matplotlib-3rd-edition-fabio-nelli/

ebookmeta.com

Python Data Analytics: With Pandas, NumPy, and Matplotlib,

3rd Edition Fabio Nelli

https://ebookmeta.com/product/python-data-analytics-with-pandas-numpy-
and-matplotlib-3rd-edition-fabio-nelli-2/

ebookmeta.com

Data Analysis with Python Introducing NumPy Pandas

Matplotlib and Essential Elements of Python Programming
1st Edition Rituraj Dixit
https://ebookmeta.com/product/data-analysis-with-python-introducing-
numpy-pandas-matplotlib-and-essential-elements-of-python-
programming-1st-edition-rituraj-dixit/
ebookmeta.com

The Medieval Risk Reward Society Courts Adventure and Love

in the European Middle Ages 1st Edition Will Hasty

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-medieval-risk-reward-society-courts-
adventure-and-love-in-the-european-middle-ages-1st-edition-will-hasty/

ebookmeta.com
Restoring Their Trust (The Lost Therian Omega Book 2) 1st
Edition Aisling Cousins

https://ebookmeta.com/product/restoring-their-trust-the-lost-therian-
omega-book-2-1st-edition-aisling-cousins/

ebookmeta.com

First Language Acquisition 3rd Edition Eve V. Clark

https://ebookmeta.com/product/first-language-acquisition-3rd-edition-
eve-v-clark/

ebookmeta.com

Challenging Bias in Forensic Psychological Assessment and

Testing Glenda Liell

https://ebookmeta.com/product/challenging-bias-in-forensic-
psychological-assessment-and-testing-glenda-liell/

ebookmeta.com

Android for Absolute Beginners - Getting Started with

Mobile Apps Development Using the Android Java SDK 1st
Edition Grant Allen
https://ebookmeta.com/product/android-for-absolute-beginners-getting-
started-with-mobile-apps-development-using-the-android-java-sdk-1st-
edition-grant-allen/
ebookmeta.com

The Alion King 1st Edition Milly Taiden

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-alion-king-1st-edition-milly-taiden/

ebookmeta.com
Lusam The Dragon Mage Wars Book Three First Edition Dean
Cadman

https://ebookmeta.com/product/lusam-the-dragon-mage-wars-book-three-
first-edition-dean-cadman/

ebookmeta.com
Data
Analysis

Numpy, Matplotlib and Pandas

by
Bernd Klein

bodenseo
© 2021 Bernd Klein

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or used in any
manner without written permission from the copyright owner.

For more information, contact address: [email protected]

www.python-course.eu
 Python Course
Data Analysis With
Python by Bernd
Klein
Numpy Tutorial ..........................................................................................................................8
Numpy Tutorial: Creating Arrays.............................................................................................17
Data Type Objects, dtype..........................................................................................................36
Numerical Operations on Numpy Arrays.................................................................................48
Numpy Arrays: Concatenating, Flattening and Adding Dimensions .......................................68
Python, Random Numbers and Probability ..............................................................................79
Weighted Probabilities..............................................................................................................90
Synthetical Test Data With Python.........................................................................................119
Numpy: Boolean Indexing......................................................................................................136
Matrix Multiplicaion, Dot and Cross Product ........................................................................143
Reading and Writing Data Files .............................................................................................149
Overview of Matplotlib ..........................................................................................................157
Format Plots............................................................................................................................168
Matplotlib Tutorial..................................................................................................................172
Shading Regions with fill_between() .....................................................................................183
Matplotlib Tutorial: Spines and Ticks ....................................................................................186
Matplotlib Tutorial, Adding Legends and Annotations..........................................................197
Matplotlib Tutorial: Subplots .................................................................................................212
Exercise ....................................................................................................................................44
Exercise ....................................................................................................................................44
Matplotlib Tutorial: Gridspec .................................................................................................239
GridSpec using SubplotSpec ..................................................................................................244
Matplotlib Tutorial: Histograms and Bar Plots ......................................................................248
Matplotlib Tutorial: Contour Plots .........................................................................................268
Introduction into Pandas.........................................................................................................303
Data Structures .......................................................................................................................305
Accessing and Changing values of DataFrames.....................................................................343
Pandas: groupby .....................................................................................................................361
Reading and Writing Data ......................................................................................................380
Dealing with NaN...................................................................................................................394
Binning in Python and Pandas................................................................................................404
Expenses and Income Example ..............................................................................................465
Net Income Method Example.................................................................................................478
3
NUMERICAL PROGRAMMING WITH
PYTHON

NUMERICAL PROGRAMMING DEFINITION

The term "Numerical Computing" - a.k.a. numerical computing or scientific computing - can be misleading.
One can think about it as "having to do with numbers" as opposed to algorithms dealing with texts for
example. If you think of Google and the way it provides links to websites for your search inquiries, you may
think about the underlying algorithm as a text based one. Yet, the core of the Google search engine is
numerical. To perform the PageRank algorithm Google executes the world's largest matrix computation.

Numerical Computing defines an area of computer science and mathematics dealing with algorithms for
numerical approximations of problems from mathematical or numerical analysis, in other words: Algorithms
solving problems involving continuous variables. Numerical analysis is used to solve science and engineering
problems.

DATA SCIENCE AND DATA ANALYSIS

This tutorial can be used as an online course on Numerical Python as it is needed by Data Scientists and Data
Analysts.

Data science is an interdisciplinary subject which includes for example statistics and computer science,
especially programming and problem solving skills. Data Science includes everything which is necessary to
create and prepare data, to manipulate, filter and clense data and to analyse data. Data can be both structured
and unstructured. We could also say Data Science includes all the techniques needed to extract and gain
information and insight from data.

Data Science is an umpbrella term which incorporates data analysis, statistics, machine learning and other
related scientific fields in order to understand and analyze data.

Another term occuring quite often in this context is "Big Data". Big Data is for sure one of the most often used
buzzwords in the software-related marketing world. Marketing managers have found out that using this term
can boost the sales of their products, regardless of the fact if they are really dealing with big data or not. The
term is often used in fuzzy ways.

Big data is data which is too large and complex, so that it is hard for data-processing application software to
deal with them. The problems include capturing and collecting data, data storage, search the data, visualization
of the data, querying, and so on.

The following concepts are associated with big data:

• volume:
the sheer amount of data, whether it will be giga-, tera-, peta- or exabytes
• velocity:
the speed of arrival and processing of data
• veracity:

4
 uncertainty or imprecision of data
• variety:
the many sources and types of data both structured and unstructured

The big question is how useful Python is for these purposes. If we would only use Python without any special
modules, this language could only poorly perform on the previously mentioned tasks. We will describe the
necessary tools in the following chapter.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PYTHON, NUMPY, MATPLOTLIB, SCIPY AND

PANDAS
Python is a general-purpose language and as such it can and it is
widely used by system administrators for operating system
administration, by web developpers as a tool to create dynamic
websites and by linguists for natural language processing tasks.
Being a truely general-purpose language, Python can of course -
without using any special numerical modules - be used to solve
numerical problems as well. So far so good, but the crux of the
matter is the execution speed. Pure Python without any
numerical modules couldn't be used for numerical tasks Matlab,
R and other languages are designed for. If it comes to
computational problem solving, it is of greatest importance to
consider the performance of algorithms, both concerning speed
and data usage.

If we use Python in combination with its modules NumPy,

SciPy, Matplotlib and Pandas, it belongs to the top numerical
programming languages. It is as efficient - if not even more
efficient - than Matlab or R.

5
Numpy is a module which provides the basic data structures,
implementing multi-dimensional arrays and matrices. Besides
that the module supplies the necessary functionalities to create
and manipulate these data structures. SciPy is based on top of
Numpy, i.e. it uses the data structures provided by NumPy. It
extends the capabilities of NumPy with further useful functions
for minimization, regression, Fourier-transformation and many
others.

Matplotlib is a plotting library for the Python programming

language and the numerically oriented modules like NumPy and
SciPy.

The youngest child in this family of modules is Pandas. Pandas

is using all of the previously mentioned modules. It's build on
top of them to provide a module for the Python language, which
is also capable of data manipulation and analysis. The special
focus of Pandas consists in offering data structures and
operations for manipulating numerical tables and time series. The name is derived from the term "panel data".
Pandas is well suited for working with tabular data as it is known from spread sheet programming like Excel.

PYTHON, AN ALTERNATIVE TO MATLAB

Python is becoming more and more the main programming language for data scientists. Yet, there are still
many scientists and engineers in the scientific and engineering world that use R and MATLAB to solve their
data analysis and data science problems. It's a question troubling lots of people, which language they should
choose: The functionality of R was developed with statisticians in mind, whereas Python is a general-purpose
language. Nevertheless, Python is also - in combination with its specialized modules, like Numpy, Scipy,
Matplotlib, Pandas and so, - an ideal programming language for solving numerical problems. Furthermore, the
community of Python is a lot larger and faster growing than the one from R.

The principal disadvantage of MATLAB against Python are the costs. Python with NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib
and Pandas is completely free, whereas MATLAB can be very expensive. "Free" means both "free" as in "free
beer" and "free" as in "freedom"! Even though MATLAB has a huge number of additional toolboxes available,
Python has the advantage that it is a more modern and complete programming language. Python is continually
becoming more powerful by a rapidly growing number of specialized modules.

Python in combination with Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib and Pandas can be used as a complete replacement for
MATLAB.

6
7
NUMPY TUTORIAL

INTRODUCTION
NumPy is a module for Python. The name is an acronym for
"Numeric Python" or "Numerical Python". It is pronounced
/ˈnʌmpaɪ/ (NUM-py) or less often /ˈnʌmpi (NUM-pee)). It is an
extension module for Python, mostly written in C. This makes
sure that the precompiled mathematical and numerical functions
and functionalities of Numpy guarantee great execution speed.

Furthermore, NumPy enriches the programming language

Python with powerful data structures, implementing multi-
dimensional arrays and matrices. These data structures
guarantee efficient calculations with matrices and arrays. The
implementation is even aiming at huge matrices and arrays,
better know under the heading of "big data". Besides that the
module supplies a large library of high-level mathematical functions to operate on these matrices and arrays.

SciPy (Scientific Python) is often mentioned in the same breath with NumPy. SciPy needs Numpy, as it is
based on the data structures of Numpy and furthermore its basic creation and manipulation functions. It
extends the capabilities of NumPy with further useful functions for minimization, regression, Fourier-
transformation and many others.

Both NumPy and SciPy are not part of a basic Python installation. They have to be installed after the Python
installation. NumPy has to be installed before installing SciPy.

(Comment: The diagram of the image on the right side is the graphical visualisation of a matrix with 14 rows
and 20 columns. It's a so-called Hinton diagram. The size of a square within this diagram corresponds to the
size of the value of the depicted matrix. The colour determines, if the value is positive or negative. In our
example: the colour red denotes negative values and the colour green denotes positive values.)

NumPy is based on two earlier Python modules dealing with arrays. One of these is Numeric. Numeric is like
NumPy a Python module for high-performance, numeric computing, but it is obsolete nowadays. Another
predecessor of NumPy is Numarray, which is a complete rewrite of Numeric but is deprecated as well. NumPy
is a merger of those two, i.e. it is build on the code of Numeric and the features of Numarray.

COMPARISON BETWEEN CORE PYTHON AND NUMPY

8
When we say "Core Python", we mean Python without any special modules, i.e. especially without NumPy.

The advantages of Core Python:

• high-level number objects: integers, floating point

• containers: lists with cheap insertion and append methods, dictionaries with fast lookup

Advantages of using Numpy with Python:

• array oriented computing

• efficiently implemented multi-dimensional arrays
• designed for scientific computation

A SIMPLE NUMPY EXAMPLE

Before we can use NumPy we will have to import it. It has to be imported like any other module:

import numpy

But you will hardly ever see this. Numpy is usually renamed to np:

import numpy as np

Our first simple Numpy example deals with temperatures. Given is a list with values, e.g. temperatures in
Celsius:

cvalues = [20.1, 20.8, 21.9, 22.5, 22.7, 22.3, 21.8, 21.2, 20.9, 2
0.1]

We will turn our list "cvalues" into a one-dimensional numpy array:

C = np.array(cvalues)
print(C)
[20.1 20.8 21.9 22.5 22.7 22.3 21.8 21.2 20.9 20.1]
Let's assume, we want to turn the values into degrees Fahrenheit. This is very easy to accomplish with a
numpy array. The solution to our problem can be achieved by simple scalar multiplication:
print(C * 9 / 5 + 32)
[68.18 69.44 71.42 72.5 72.86 72.14 71.24 70.16 69.62 68.18]

9
The array C has not been changed by this expression:

print(C)
[20.1 20.8 21.9 22.5 22.7 22.3 21.8 21.2 20.9 20.1]

Compared to this, the solution for our Python list looks awkward:

fvalues = [ x*9/5 + 32 for x in cvalues]

print(fvalues)
[68.18, 69.44, 71.42, 72.5, 72.86, 72.14, 71.24000000000001, 70.1
6, 69.62, 68.18]

So far, we referred to C as an array. The internal type is "ndarray" or to be even more precise "C is an instance
of the class numpy.ndarray":

type(C)
Output: numpy.ndarray

In the following, we will use the terms "array" and "ndarray" in most cases synonymously.

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE VALUES

Even though we want to cover the module matplotlib not until a later chapter, we want to demonstrate how we
can use this module to depict our temperature values. To do this, we us the package pyplot from matplotlib.

If you use the jupyter notebook, you might be well advised to include the following line of code to prevent an
external window to pop up and to have your diagram included in the notebook:

%matplotlib inline

The code to generate a plot for our values looks like this:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.plot(C)
plt.show()

10
The function plot uses the values of the array C for the values of the ordinate, i.e. the y-axis. The indices of the
array C are taken as values for the abscissa, i.e. the x-axis.

MEMORY CONSUMPTION: NDARRAY AND LIST

The main benefits of using numpy arrays should be smaller memory consumption and better runtime
behaviour. We want to look at the memory usage of numpy arrays in this subchapter of our turorial and
compare it to the memory consumption of Python lists.

11
To calculate the memory consumption of the list from the above picture, we will use the function getsizeof
from the module sys.

from sys import getsizeof as size

lst = [24, 12, 57]

size_of_list_object = size(lst) # only green box

size_of_elements = len(lst) * size(lst[0]) # 24, 12, 57

total_list_size = size_of_list_object + size_of_elements

print("Size without the size of the elements: ", size_of_list_obje
ct)
print("Size of all the elements: ", size_of_elements)
print("Total size of list, including elements: ", total_list_size)
Size without the size of the elements: 96
Size of all the elements: 84
Total size of list, including elements: 180

The size of a Python list consists of the general list information, the size needed for the references to the
elements and the size of all the elements of the list. If we apply sys.getsizeof to a list, we get only the size
without the size of the elements. In the previous example, we made the assumption that all the integer
elements of our list have the same size. Of course, this is not valid in general, because memory consumption
will be higher for larger integers.

We will check now, how the memory usage changes, if we add another integer element to the list. We also
look at an empty list:

lst = [24, 12, 57, 42]

size_of_list_object = size(lst) # only green box

size_of_elements = len(lst) * size(lst[0]) # 24, 12, 57, 42

total_list_size = size_of_list_object + size_of_elements

print("Size without the size of the elements: ", size_of_list_obje
ct)
print("Size of all the elements: ", size_of_elements)
print("Total size of list, including elements: ", total_list_size)

lst = []
print("Emtpy list size: ", size(lst))

12
 Size without the size of the elements: 104
Size of all the elements: 112
Total size of list, including elements: 216
Emtpy list size: 72

We can conclude from this that for every new element, we need another eight bytes for the reference to the
new object. The new integer object itself consumes 28 bytes. The size of a list "lst" without the size of the
elements can be calculated with:

64 + 8 * len(lst)

To get the complete size of an arbitrary list of integers, we have to add the sum of all the sizes of the integers.

We will examine now the memory consumption of a numpy.array. To this purpose, we will have a look at the
implementation in the following picture:

We will create the numpy array of the previous diagram and calculate the memory usage:

a = np.array([24, 12, 57])

print(size(a))
120

We get the memory usage for the general array information by creating an empty array:

e = np.array([])
print(size(e))
96

13
Other documents randomly have
different content
 PRUNUS INSITITIA

1. Linnaeus Amoen. Acad. 4:273. 1755. 2. Seringe DC. Prodr. 2:532.

1825. 3. Hooker Brit. Fl. 220. 1830. 4. Loudon Arb. Fr. Brit. 2:687. 1844.
5. Koch, K. Dend. 1:95. 1869. 6. Ibid. Deut. Obst. 144. 1876. 7. De
Candolle Or. Cult. Pl. 211. 1885. 8. Emerson Trees of Mass. Ed. 4:512.
1887. 9. Schwarz Forst. Bot. 339. 1892. 10. Koch, W. Syn. Deut. und
 Schw. Fl. 1:726. 1892. 11. Koehne Deut. Dend. 316. 1893. 12. Dippel
Handb. Laubh. 3:639. 1893. 13. Lucas. Handb. Obst. 429. 1893. 14. Beck
von Managetta Nied. Oester. 819. 1893.
P. communis (in part). 15. Hudson Fl. Anglic. 212. 1778. 16. Bentham
Handb. Brit. Fl. 1:236. 1865.
P. domestica insititia. 17. Schneider Handb. Laubh. 1:630. 1892. 18.
Waugh Bot. Gaz. 27:478. 1899.

Tree dwarfish but thrifty, attaining a height of twenty to twenty-five

feet; trunk reaches eight inches in diameter and bears its head rather low,
three to five feet from the ground; bark gray with a tinge of red, smooth,
with transverse cracks; branches upright-spreading, rigid, compact, short-
jointed, and more or less thorny; branchlets pubescent, slender, reddish-
brown or drab.
Winter-buds small, conical, pointed or obtuse, free or appressed; leaves
small, ovate or obovate; apex obtuse or abruptly pointed, base cuneate or
narrowed and rounded, margins finely and closely, sometimes doubly
serrate or crenate, usually glandular; texture thin and firm; upper surface
slightly rugose, dark green, slightly hairy; lower surface paler and soft,
pubescent; petioles one-half inch long, slender, pubescent, tinged with
red; glands few or glandless.
Flowers expand with or after the leaves, one inch or less in size; borne
variously but usually in lateral, umbel-like clusters, one, two or rarely
three from a bud, on slender pedicels, which are pubescent and one-half
inch in length; calyx-tube campanulate, glabrous or nearly so, green or
tinged with red; calyx-lobes narrow, obtuse or acute, glandular-serrate,
glabrous or pubescent, reflexed; petals white or creamy in the bud,
broadly oval, entire or dentate, reflexed, claw short; stamens about
twenty-five, as long as the petals; anthers yellow, often tinged with red;
pistil glabrous and nearly as long as the stamens.
Fruit ripens from early to late; globular or oval, often necked, less than
an inch in diameter, variously colored but usually bluish-black or amber-
yellow, with a heavy bloom; skin thin, tough; stem slender, one-half inch
long, more or less pubescent; cavity shallow, narrow; apex roundish or
flattened; suture indistinct or a line; flesh firm, yellow, juicy, sweet or
acid; stone clinging or free, somewhat turgid, ovoid, nearly smooth,
ridged on one edge and grooved on the other.

There is a great diversity of opinion among botanists as to what

Linnaeus meant to include in his Prunus insititia. His description of
the species is not definite and can be made to apply to any one of
several very distinct plums. But the botanists who recognize the
species usually include in it, among cultivated plums, the Bullaces
and the Damsons, plums which differ only in the shape of the fruit,
the former being round and the latter oval. Some of the texts noted
in the references for this species also place the St. Julien and the
Mirabelle plums here. In The Plums of New York the authors
consider the Bullaces, Damsons, the St. Julien and the Mirabelles as
belonging to this species.
It is true that Linnaeus established at an earlier date than the
naming of Prunus insititia his Prunus domestica damascena, in which
the varietal name indicates that he meant the Damsons, but the
description of the variety taken by him from Bauhin’s Pinax[60]
making the plum large, sweet and dark purplish, cannot be made to
apply to this fruit, nor can it be connected definitely with any other
plum; this being true, and since Linnaeus refers to no type
specimen, figure, or locality, his Prunus domestica damascena
according to current botanical practices in America, should be
rejected.
The trees of the Insititia varieties are readily distinguished from
the Domestica sorts in having a dwarfer and more compact habit;
much smaller and more ovate leaves with more closely serrate
margins; branches more finely divided, more slender, with shorter
joints, and bearing spines or spinescent spurs; having a more
abundant and a more clustered inflorescence, with smaller flowers, a
glabrous instead of a pubescent pistil and calyx-tube; reflexed calyx-
lobes where in Domestica they are often erect; and flowers
appearing nearly a week later. The number of stamens in Prunus
domestica averages about thirty; in Prunus insititia, about twenty-
five. The fruit-characters of Prunus insititia are even more distinctive.
The fruits are smaller, being less than an inch in diameter, more
nearly round or oval, more uniform in shape, never strongly
compressed as in Domestica, with a less distinct suture and more
often with a pronounced neck. The color is usually the Damson
purple or the Mirabelle yellow, with no intermediate colors as in
Domestica and with few or but slight variations as compared with
the other species. The plums are sweet or sour with a very much
smaller range in flavor in the case of the Insititias and withal very
distinct from that of Prunus domestica. The stones are smaller, more
oval and much more swollen.
In variability the Insititia plums are quite the reverse of the
Domesticas, almost wholly lacking this quality. These plums have
been cultivated over two thousand years, yet there is seemingly little
difference between the sorts described by the Greeks and Romans at
the beginning of the Christian Era and those we are now growing.
So, too, one often finds half-wild chance seedlings with fruit
indistinguishable from varieties under the highest cultivation. This
pronounced immutability of the species is one of its chief
characteristics.
There are probably several sub-divisions of Prunus insititia but
material does not exist in America for the proper determination of
the true place for these forms, and the Old World botanists cannot
agree in regard to them. It is probable that Prunus subsylvestris
Boutigny[61] and Prunus pomarium Boutigny[62] belong to Prunus
insititia and almost beyond question Prunus syriaca Koehne[63] is the
yellow-fruited Mirabelle of this species. Prunus insititia glaberrima
Wirtg,[64] occasionally found in the herbaria of Europe has, with its
small, roundish-obovate leaves, but little appearance of Prunus
insititia and may be, as Schneider surmises,[65] a cross between
Prunus spinosa and the Myrobalan of Prunus cerasifera.
The Insititia plums are second in importance only to the
Domesticas. Their recorded history is older. This is the plum of the
Greek poets, Archilochus and Hippona, in the Sixth Century B. C.[66]
Theophrastus, the philosopher, mentioned it three hundred years
before Christ, as did Pollux, the writer and grammarian, a century
before the Savior, while Dioscorides, the founder of botany, during
the last named period, distinguishes between this plum and one
from Syria, presumably a Domestica. This is one of the twelve kinds
of plums described by Pliny (see page 17) who calls it the
Damascene, so-called from Damascus in Syria, and says of it,
“introduced long since into Italy.” It is the Damask plum of Columella
when in his tenth book he says:

“then are the wicker baskets cramm’d

With Damask and Armenian and Wax plums.”

The yellow plums of the Roman poets, Ovid and Vergil, are probably
the Bullaces or Mirabelles of this species. Indeed, its cultivation was
probably prehistoric, for Heer[67] has illustrated and described
stones of a plum found in the lake-dwellings of Robenhausen which
can be no other than those of Insititia.
The authentic written history of this plum may be said to have
begun with or a little before the Christian Era. The records of the
cultivation and development through the early centuries of the
present chronology and the Middle Ages to our own day may be
found in the herbals, botanies, pomologies, agricultural and general
literature of the past two thousand years.
Prunus insititia now grows wild in nearly all temperate parts of
Europe and western Asia—from the Mediterranean northward into
Norway, Sweden and Russia. The botanists of Europe very generally
agree that its original habitat was in southern and southeastern
Europe and the adjoining parts of Asia, and that elsewhere it is an
escape from cultivation. Hooker[68] says that Prunus insititia grows
in western temperate Himalaya, cultivated and indigenous, from
Gurwhal to Kashmir, the type being that of the “common yellow-
fruited Bullace.” A few botanical writers hold that it is truly wild in
the parts of Europe where now found growing. There are also not a
few botanists who, as has been stated in the discussion of the
Domestica plums, unite the Insititias with the Domesticas, and
others who combine these two with the Spinosa plums in one
species, Prunus communis.[69]
 It is possible that the species is occasionally found naturalized in
eastern United States; several botanists so give it.
Wherever the habitat of the Insititia plums may have been,
practically all writers from the Greeks and Romans who first mention
this fruit to those of the present time, connect the cultivated
varieties in one way or another with the old Semite city, Damascus.
It is almost certain that the Syrians or Persians were the first to
cultivate these plums, and that they were unknown in Europe as
domesticated varieties until the Greeks first and the Romans
afterward came in intimate contact with the people of the Orient.
Thus it is often stated in the old pomologies that Alexander the
Great brought these plums from the Orient after his expedition of
conquest and that some centuries later Pompey, returning from his
invasion of the eastern countries, brought plums to the Roman
Empire.
The history of the Insititia plums in America has been given in the
main in the discussion of the Domestica plums, for the varieties of
the two species have never been kept separate by plum-growers, all
being grouped together as European plums. It is probable, however,
that the Damson plums of this species were earlier introduced and
more generally grown than any other of the European plums by the
English settlers of America, as the references to plum-growing
before the Revolution are largely to the Damsons. The reasons for
this early preference for these plums are that they come true to seed
while most varieties of the Domestica do not; and trees and cions
were not readily transportable in colonial times; and, too, the
Damsons have always been favorite plums with the English.
When the first American fruit books were published at the
beginning of the Nineteenth Century the Damsons and Bullaces were
widely grown, for all writers give a relatively large number of
varieties of these plums and speak well of them. Thus McMahon,[70]
in his list of thirty plums gives six that belong here, ending his list
with “Common Damson, etc.,” as if there were still more than those
he enumerates. Prince, in his Pomological Manual, in 1832, gives at
least eighteen sorts that may be referred to Insititia with the
statement that one of them, the Early Damson “appears to have
been brought to this country by the early Dutch settlers, or by the
French who settled here at the time of the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes,” adding, “It is much disseminated throughout this section of
the country.” At the end of the Eighteenth Century Deane’s[71] New
England Farmer or Georgical Dictionary, in a discussion of plums in
general says: “The most common plum in this country is the
Damascene plum, an excellent fruit for preserving, which is said to
have been brought from Damasam, hence the name.”
The hardiness, thriftiness and productiveness of all of the varieties
of this species commend them to those who cannot give the care
required to grow the less easily grown Domesticas, and in America,
as in Europe, these plums are to be found in almost every orchard
and in many communities half-wild, thriving with little or no care.
The fact that they are easily propagated, growing readily from
suckers and coming true to seed is an added reason for their general
distribution.
The Insititia plums do not seem to hybridize freely with other
species—at least there are no recorded offspring of such hybrids,
though Koch believes the Reine Claudes to be a hybrid group
between this species and the Domesticas and there is much
evidence in the fruit to show that the French Damson is part
Domestica. The tree-characters of the Insititia plums are such,
especially as regards vigor, hardiness, productiveness and freedom
from disease, as to seemingly make hybrids with them very
desirable. That this species can be hybridized with Domestica, at
least, is certain from work done at this Station where we have made
a number of crosses between them.
Four groups of plums, the Damsons, Bullaces, Mirabelles and St.
Juliens, in all eighty-six varieties mentioned in The Plums of New
York, may be referred to this species. There are so few real
differences between these divisions, however, that it is hardly
possible, logically, to sub-divide Insititia plums into more than two
groups. But since the groups of plums given above are so often
referred to in pomological works it is necessary to discuss them.
The Damsons.—The description given the species fits this division
of it closely, the differentiating character for the fruit, if any, being
oval fruits, while the Bullaces, most nearly like these, are round. The
origin of the Damsons, as we have seen, was in Syria and near the
ancient city, Damascus, their written history dating back several
centuries before Christ. This plum has escaped from cultivation in
nearly all the temperate parts of Europe and more or less in the
eastern United States, the wild forms often passing under other
names, as the Wild, Wheat, Spilling, Donkey, Ass, Hog and Horse
plums. The true Damsons have a fine spicy taste, which makes them
especially desirable for cooking and preserving, but a very decided
astringency of the skin makes most of the varieties of Damsons
undesirable to eat out of the hand; this astringency largely
disappears with cooking or after a light frost. Nearly all Damsons are
sour, though a few sweet Insititias are placed in this group.
Since the seeds grow readily and the sprouts are very
manageable, the Damsons, with the other Insititias, are much used
as stocks upon which to work other plums, especially the less hardy
and less thrifty Domesticas. Although less used now than formerly
for stocks it is a question if these plums, or some of their near kin,
do not make the best obtainable stocks. There seems to be much
difference in the varieties of Insititia in their capacity to send up
sprouts. The forms which send up the fewest sprouts are much the
best for use as stocks.
Curiously enough, the Damsons are highly esteemed now only by
the Americans and English, being grown much less at present in
Continental Europe than a century or two ago. Late pomological
works and nurserymen’s catalogs from others than the English or
Americans barely mention these plums.
The Bullaces.—It is impossible to distinguish between the tree-
characters of the Damsons and the Bullaces, and pomologists are far
from agreeing as to what differences in the fruit throw a variety into
one group or the other. Some writers call a sour variety of Insititia a
Damson, and a sweet one a Bullace; others make color the
differentiating character, calling the purple plums Damsons and the
light colored ones Bullaces; still others call oval Insititias Damsons
and round ones Bullaces. If a distinction is to be made, shape seems
to be the character upon which it should be based. The name
Bullace applies to the round shape of the fruit, but when first used
or by whom given it is impossible to say. It is commonly used in the
old herbals and pomologies of both England and Continental Europe,
there being many variations of the name, of which bullis and bulloes
are most common with the word bullum in frequent use for the fruit
of the Bullace tree. The varieties of Bullaces are few in number, and
are not largely grown, being known for most part only in fruit
collections, the Damsons serving all the purposes for which the
Bullaces would be worth growing, and to better advantage.
The Mirabelles.—The Mirabelles are round, yellowish or golden,
freestone Insititias, ranging from half an inch to an inch in diameter,
very slightly sub-acid or sweet. The trees do not differ from the type
of the species unless it be in even greater productiveness than the
other groups of Insititia, all of which bear very abundant crops. The
fruits represent the highest quality to be found in the varieties of this
species, approaching the Reine Claudes of Prunus domestica in
richness of flavor. Indeed, the Mirabelles may almost be said to be
diminutive Reine Claudes, resembling them not only in quality but in
color and in shape, and so closely as to lend color to Koch’s[72]
supposition that the Reine Claudes are hybrids between Prunus
domestica and Prunus insititia.
In France the Mirabelles are accorded second if not first place
among plums, being superseded in popularity, if at all, only by the
Reine Claudes. They are used in the fresh state and as prunes, and
are freely made into conserves, preserves, jellies and jams, being
found in the markets in some of these forms the year round. They
are much used for pastry, their size being such that one layer of fruit
suffices and is none too deep for a good pie or tart. The fermented
juice of these plums is somewhat largely used in the making of a
distilled liquor, a sort of plum brandy. The dozen or more varieties of
Mirabelles differ chiefly in size of fruit and in time of maturity. The
range in size is from half an inch to an inch in diameter and in time
of ripening in France from the first of August to the first of October.
The Red Mirabelle frequently referred to in pomological works is
Prunus cerasifera, and the name is wrongly so used, for if not first
applied to the several varieties of Insititia it now by almost universal
usage belongs to these plums. The origin of the word, as now
commonly used, dates back over two centuries, being found in the
pomological treatises of the Seventeenth Century. The assumption is
that Mirabelle is derived from mirable meaning wonderful, and the
name was first so used by the French.
Unfortunately the Mirabelles are hardly known in America. These
plums have so many good qualities of tree and fruit that American
pomology would be greatly enriched if the best Mirabelle varieties
were grown in both home and commercial orchards. They should be
used in cookery much as are the Damsons, which they surpass for
some purposes.
St. Juliens.—The St. Julien that the writer has seen in American
and European nurseries is unmistakably an Insititia. At one time St.
Julien stocks were used almost exclusively in New York nurseries,
and few large plum orchards are free from trees which have through
accident to the cion grown from the stock. Such trees bear fruit so
like the Damson that one is warranted in saying that the two are
identical, and that St. Julien is but a name used for a Damson when
the latter is employed as a stock. The fruit is sweetish with a taste
identical with that of the sweet Damsons.
Plum-growers who have had experience with plums on several
stocks are almost united in the opinion that the St. Julien is the best
of all for the Domesticas, at least. St. Julien stocks were formerly
imported in great numbers from France, where it is still largely
grown for European use. The name seems to have come in use in
France more than a century ago, but why given or to what particular
Insititia applied does not appear. There is, however, a distinct variety
or type of Insititia used by the French in producing stocks, for
French pomologists advise careful selection of mother-plants for the
production of the young trees by suckers or layers, and caution
growers of stocks in no case to use seeds which bring twiggy, spiny
and crooked stocks.[73] St. Julien plums are seemingly nowhere
grown at present for their fruits.
There are several ornamental forms of plums which are given
specific names by European horticulturists, mentioned in the last
paragraph in the discussion of the Domestica plums, which some
writers place, in part at least, with the Insititias. These plums are not
found in America and it is impossible to place them with certainty in
either of the two species upon the contradictory evidence of the
Europeans.

3. PRUNUS SPINOSA Linnaeus.

1. Linnaeus Sp. Pl. 475. 1753. 2. Hudson Fl. Anglic. 186. 1778. 3.
Ehrhart Beitr. Nat. 4:16. 1789. 4. Pursh Fl. Am. Sept. 1:333. 1814. 5.
Hooker Fl. Bor. Am. 1:167. 1833. 6. Torrey and Gray Fl. N. Am. 1:408.
1840. 7. Koch, K. Dend. 1:98. 1869. 8. Ibid. Deut. Obst. 143. 1876. 9.
DeCandolle Or. Cult. Pl. 212. 1885. 10. Schwarz Forst. Bot. 339. 1892. 11.
Koch, W. Syn. Deut. und Schw. Fl. 1:726. 1892. 12. Dippel Handb. Laubh.
3:637. 1893. 13. Koehne Deut. Dend. 316. 1893. 14. Beck von Managetta
Nied. Oester. 818. 1893. 15. Bailey Cyc. Am. Hort. 1447 fig. 1901. 16.
Schneider Handb. Laubh. 1:628. 1906.

Plant low, spreading, much-branched, thorny, shrubby, seldom attaining

the dimensions of a small tree; branchlets distinctly pubescent; leaves
small, ovate or oblong-ovate, sometimes obovate, numerous, nearly
glabrous at maturity, obtuse at the apex, cuneate or rounded at the base,
margins closely and finely serrate.
Flowers white, one-third or one-half inch in diameter, expanding before
the leaves; borne singly, in pairs or sometimes in threes, in lateral
clusters.
Fruit globose, usually less than one-half inch in diameter, dark blue,
almost black, with a heavy bloom; flesh juicy, firm, with an acid, austere
 taste, scarcely edible for a dessert fruit but making a very good conserve;
stone turgid or but little flattened, acute on one edge.

European botanists commonly break the species into a number of

sub-species, as:—Prunus spinosa typica Schneider,[74] flower-
pedicels and calyx-cup glabrous; Prunus spinosa praecox Wim. and
Grab.,[75] pedicels short, blossoms appearing before the leaves;
Prunus spinosa sessiliflora Beck,[76] with sessile flowers, possibly the
same as the next preceding form; Prunus spinosa coatanea Wim.
and Grab.[77], blossoming with the leaves and with long pedicels;
and Prunus spinosa dasyphylla Schur.[78], flower-pedicel and calyx-
cup more or less hairy. Besides these botanical sub-divisions there
are several horticultural forms as follows:
Prunus spinosa flore-pleno of the nurserymen is a double-flowered
form, making a beautiful little shrub or small tree much planted in
gardens in Europe and somewhat in America. Its blossoms are pure
white, about half an inch in diameter and not quite double, as the
stamens form an orange cluster in the center of the flower. The
flowers are thickly crowded on short spiny branches, the dark color
of which forms a striking contrast to the white flower. Prunus spinosa
purpurea is another horticultural group, more vigorous than the
species, less thorny and with larger foliage. Its branches are erect,
purplish in color, striated. The leaves and petioles are at first very
pubescent but at maturity glabrous; the upper surface of the leaf is
green marked with red, the under a deep reddish-violet. The flowers
are a pale rose. One or two variegated forms of this species are also
offered by nurserymen.
Schneider holds[79] Prunus fruticans Weihe[80] and Prunus spinosa
macrocarpa Wallroth[81] to be crosses between Prunus spinosa and
Prunus insititia.
Prunus spinosa, the Blackthorn or European Sloe, is the common
wild plum of temperate Europe and the adjoining parts of Asia. It is
adventive from Europe to America and is now quite naturalized along
roadsides and about fields in many places in eastern United States.
Prunus spinosa is considered by some authors the remote ancestor
of the Domestica and Insititia plums, but as brought out in the
discussion of the last named species, such parentage is very
doubtful.
The Spinosa plum is a common and often pestiferous plant in its
habitat, the roots forming such a mass that in general it is
impossible for any other vegetation to grow in its vicinity. The plant
is small, spreading and much branched and bristles with sharp
thorns. The leaves are smaller than those of any of the other Old
World species, ovate in shape and very finely serrate. The flowers
are usually single but sometimes in pairs or threes and are borne in
such number as to make a dazzling mass of white; comparatively
few of these, however, set fruit. The fruit is round and small, usually
less than half an inch in diameter, and, typically, so black as to have
given rise to the old saying, “as black as a sloe.” The fruits are firm
but rather juicy, with an acid, austere flavor, which makes them unfit
for eating out of hand until frost-bitten, when the austereness is
somewhat mitigated. The stone is much swollen, with one edge
acute.
European nurserymen now and then offer trees of the Spinosa
plum for fruit-growing, sometimes with the statement that the fruit
is sweet. But pomologists do not speak highly of these cultivated
Spinosas and hold that they are hardly worth cultivation. The wild
plums are quite commonly picked for certain markets in Europe,
however, especially those in which the Domesticas and Insititias are
not common. With plenty of sugar the fruits make a very good
conserve. In France the unripe fruit is pickled as a substitute for
olives and the juice of the ripe fruit is sometimes used to make or
adulterate cheap grades of port wine. In the country districts of
Germany and Russia the fruit is crushed and fermented and spirit
distilled from it.
The species is quite variable within limits, but since the wild fruits
have been used from the time of the lake-dwellers of central Europe,
without the appearance of desirable forms, the variations are not
likely to give horticultural varieties worth cultivating for table use.
The variations in the fruit are usually in color, the size and flavor
changing but little. Several ornamental forms are in cultivation, of
which the chief ones have been named.

4. PRUNUS CURDICA Fenzl and Fritsch.

1. Fenzl and Fritsch Sitzb. Akad. Wien. Bd. CI. 1:627. 1892. 2.
Schneider Handb. Laubh. 1:628. 1906.

The few herbarium specimens that the writer has seen of this
species from southeastern Europe strongly resemble Prunus spinosa
but Schneider in the above reference describing it from living
specimens says that it differs from the species last named as
follows: “Lower growth, about one-half as high, spreading squarrose
ramification, much less thorniness; leaves more like domestica, when
young hairy on both sides, later above nearly and underneath more
or less glabrous; petiole shorter, not exceeding one cm.; blooms
later, nearly with the leaves, white, about twenty-two mm. in
diameter, borne almost always single in this species; pedicel finely
pilose, in Prunus spinosa almost glabrous; stamens fewer, about
twenty; fruit blue black, stem longer, exceeding twelve mm.”
So far as appears from the few and scant European references to
the species it has no horticultural value.

5. PRUNUS COCOMILIA Tenore.

1. Tenore Fl. Neap. Prodr. Suppl. 2:68. 1811. 2. Schneider Handb.
Laubh. 1:628. 1906.

Tree shrub-like, top thick, broadly ovate; branches drooping, shoots

short; branchlets glabrous, young wood olive or reddish-brown. Buds
small, roundish-ovate; leaves roundish-obovate, sharply and distinctly
serrated, glabrous or upon the ribs on the under side sparsely pubescent.
 Flowers usually in pairs, opening before or with the leaves, greenish-
white, pedicels about the length of the calyx-cups. Fruit yellow, agreeable.

The writer has seen only herbarium specimens of this plant and
has taken the description given from European texts. According to
Schneider the species has been divided into two varieties by the
Italian botanists. Prunus cocomilia typica having oblong-ovate fruit
and Prunus cocomilia brutia having round fruit. Schneider holds also
that Prunus pseudoarmeniaca Heldr. and Sart.[82] from Epirus and
Thessaly is a variety of Prunus cocomilia differing chiefly in having
more pointed leaves and smaller oblong-roundish red plums. The
same author puts in this species still another plum, a hairy-leaved
form from Thessaly which he calls Prunus cocomilia puberula. He
places here also Prunus ursina Kotschy[83] which differs only in
minor respects from the species, chiefly in having violet-red fruit
though Boissier[84] mentions a yellow-fruited plum which he calls
Prunus ursina flava. The last named plums come from Lebanon and
North Syria.

6. PRUNUS CERASIFERA Ehrhart[85]

 PRUNUS CERASIFERA

1. Ehrhart Beitr. Nat. 4:17. 1789. 2. Hooker Brit. Fl. 220. 1830. 3. Koch,
K. Dend. 1:97. 1869. 4. Koch, W. Syn. Deut. und Schw. Fl. 1:727. 1892.
5. Bailey Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:66. 1892. 6. Schneider Handb. Laubh.
1:632. 1892. 7. Schwarz Forst. Bot. 339. 1892. 8. Dippel Handb. Laubh.
1:633. 1893.
 P. domestica myrobalan. 9. Linnaeus Sp. Pl. 475. 1753. 10. Seringe DC.
Prodr. 2:538. 1825.
P. myrobalan. 11. Loisleur Nouv. Duham. 5:184. 1812. 12. Koehne
Deut. Dend. 316. 1893.

Tree small or a tree-like shrub, seldom exceeding twenty-five feet in

height; branches upright, slender, twiggy, unarmed or sometimes thorny;
branchlets soon glabrous, becoming yellow or chestnut-brown; lenticels
few, small, orange in color, raised.
Winter-buds small, obtuse, short-pointed, pale reddish-brown; leaves
small, short-ovate, apex acute, base cuneate or rounded, thin,
membranaceous, texture firm, light green, nearly glabrous on both
surfaces at maturity, though hairy along the rib on the lower surface,
margins finely and closely serrate; petiole one-half or three-quarters of an
inch long, slender, usually glabrous, glandless.
Flowers large, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, expanding very
early or mostly with the leaves; calyx-lobes lanceolate, glandular, reflexed;
petals white, sometimes with a blush, ovate-oblong or orbicular, the base
contracted into a claw; borne singly, sometimes in pairs, in cymes on long,
slender, glabrous peduncles.
Fruit small, one-half inch or a little more in diameter, globular or
depressed-globular, cherry-like, red or yellow; skin thin and tender; flesh
soft, juicy, sweet and rather pleasantly flavored; stone oval, short-pointed
at both ends, somewhat turgid, ridged on one suture and grooved on the
other.

Prunus cerasifera, the Cherry plum, first came to notice in

pomological literature as the Myrobalan plum, a name used as early
as the last half of the Sixteenth Century by Tabernæ-Montanus and
given prominence in the Rariorum Plantarum Historum, published by
Clusius in 1601. Why applied to this plum is not known. Myrobalan
had long before been used, and is still, as the name of several plum-
like fruits of the East Indies, not of the genus Prunus, which are
used in tanning, dyeing, ink-making and embalming. Until Ehrhart
gave it the name Prunus cerasifera in 1789 it was known as the
Myrobalan plum by botanists, some of whom, and nearly all
horticulturists, have continued the use of the name until the present
time.
 Not a few of the botanists who have used Myrobalan for this plum
have called it a botanical variety of Prunus domestica. Among these
were Linnaeus and Seringe. Others, as Loisleur and Poiteau, have
preferred the name for the species as distinguished by Ehrhart.
Many of the early botanists, as Tournefort in 1700, Ehrhart in
1701, Loudon in 1806 and Loisleur in 1812, gave the origin of the
Cerasifera plums as North America, but upon what authority does
not appear. On the other hand many European botanists, including
Linnaeus, gave the habitat as Europe or Asia. The supposition that
this plum came from North America hardly needs discussion. The
plum flora of this continent has been well enough studied so that it
can be said that no plant that could by any possibility be the
Cerasifera plum grows on this side of the Atlantic. Neither does it
seem logical to consider this an off-shoot of Prunus domestica, for
fruit and tree-characters are distinctly different, and for a member of
the genus Prunus are remarkably constant. Moreover, there is
abundant evidence to show that this is a distinct species and that its
nativity is in the Turkish and nearby countries in Europe and Asia
and that there it has been in cultivation for a long time.
It is very significant that in the old herbals and botanies a frequent
name of this fruit is “the Turkish plum.” But more specific and almost
conclusive proof is that two forms of plums belonging to this species
are known to come from the Caucasus region. Prunus divaricata[86]
is now considered by some botanists to be a synonym of Prunus
cerasifera and by others to be a botanical variety of the last named
species. Ledebour, who named it, found it in the Trans-Caucasian
region. It differs from the type only in having much divided, wide-
spreading and nearly prostrate branches. The Pissardi plum, a
purple-leaved form of this species, originated in Persia. A plum now
growing in the Arnold Arboretum raised from seed from Turkestan,
presumably from wild stock, is identical with plants of Cerasifera of
European origin. And, according to Schneider,[87] this plum is known
in the wild state in Caucasus, Trans-Caucasus, northern Persia and
Turkestan.
 The Cerasifera plums are small trees, usually upright but in some
forms with spreading branches which are commonly unarmed,
glabrous and brownish in color. The leaves are ovate and smaller
and thinner and with more finely serrate margin than those of the
Domestica plums. It blooms prolifically and bears large, white, single
or paired flowers, making a most beautiful tree when in flower. The
fruit is small, round, and cherry-like, from half an inch to an inch in
diameter, usually red but sometimes yellow. The flesh is soft,
sweetish or sub-acid and poor. The stone is turgid, smooth and
pointed. The species is variable in nearly all tree-characters, and
were it not surpassed by other plums for its fruit there would
undoubtedly be a great number of varieties cultivated for the
markets. There are, however, but few cultivated Cerasiferas, only
nineteen being described in The Plums of New York. It is very
generally distributed wherever plums are grown, because of the use
to which it has been put as stocks for other species. For this purpose
it is held in high esteem the world over. In the nurseries of New York
it is now used more than any other stock and it is common to find it
fruiting here and there from plants set for or used as stocks. In fact
practically all the cultivated varieties have arisen as survivals of
plants meant for stocks. It is almost certain that the Cerasifera, or
Myrobalan, as it is universally known by horticulturists, dwarfs the
cion and that it is not equally well suited to all varieties; but it does
not “sprout” as badly as some other stocks, is adapted to many soils,
and the young trees grow well and are rapidly budded, giving at the
start a strong and vigorous orchard tree.
The Cerasifera plums are handsome trees. The foliage is a fresh
and beautiful green and whether covered with a mass of flowers or
loaded with red or yellow fruit these plums are as handsome as any
of our cultivated fruit trees, and as desirable for ornamentals.
The hardiness, thriftiness, freedom from disease and adaptability
to soils make the species desirable for hybridizing. A number of
breeders of plums have made use of it with some indications of a
promising future, several interesting hybrid offspring of this species
being described in The Plums of New York.
 The small number of varieties of Cerasifera cultivated for their fruit
indicates that but little can be expected from this species by plum-
growers, since so little has come from it in the shape of edible fruits,
though it has been under general cultivation for over three hundred
years, at least, as an ornamental and as a stock. Several valuable
groups of ornamentals have arisen from Cerasifera, of which the
following are most notable:—
In 1880 M. Pissard, gardener to the Shah of Persia, sent to France
a purple-leaved plum which proved to be a form of Prunus
cerasifera. To this plum Dippel[88] gave the name Prunus cerasifera
atropurpurea, while horticulturists very generally call it Prunus
pissardi. A close study of the purple-leaved plum reveals no
character in which it differs from the species except in the color of
foliage, flowers and fruit; the leaves are purple, as are also the calyx
and peduncles of the flowers, while the fruit is a dark wine-red.
These are but horticultural characters and do not seem to be of
sufficient importance to establish for this plant a botanical variety.
This view is strengthened by the fact that Jack[89] reports that seeds
from the purple-leaved plum have produced plants which agree in all
essential particulars with the species; while Kerr[90] has grown a
purple-leaved plum from a variety of Prunus cerasifera.
Besides this well-known purple-leaved plum nurserymen offer
Prunus pendula, a weeping form; Prunus planteriensis, bearing
double white and red flowers; Prunus acutifolia, a plum with narrow,
willow-like leaves; Prunus contorta, characterized by twisted,
contorted foliage; Prunus elegans, Prunus gigantea, and a variety
with yellow and another with variegated leaves, etc. All of these are
probably horticultural varieties of Prunus cerasifera though some of
them cannot be classified with surety.
Schneider[91] calls Prunus dasycarpa Ehrhart,[92] the Prunus
armeniaca dasycarpa of Borkhausen,[93] a cross between Prunus
cerasifera and Prunus armeniaca, one of the apricots.
 7. PRUNUS MONTICOLA K. Koch
1. Koch, K. Ind. Sem. Hort. Berol. App. 1854. 2. Schneider Handb.
Laubh. 1:632. 1906.

Plant shrub-like, slender, upright, scarcely thorny, new wood more or

less olive-brown. Buds short, ovate; leaves roundish or cuneiform, base
oblong-ovate, point drawn out, main nerves over six on both sides, the
serrations coarse and uniform in size, always glabrous. Flowers mostly in
twos; borne on long, slender peduncles; calyx usually glabrous; petals
white, odor slight; stamens thirty or more. Fruit small, roundish-oblong,
red; stone ovoid, pointed at one end, somewhat turgid.

Prunus monticola is described by the above authors as a shrub-like

plum from Asia Minor and Armenia having, so far as can be learned
from European texts, little or no horticultural value. The herbarium
specimens seen by the writer indicate that this species is closely
related to Prunus cerasifera. The description of the species is
abbreviated from Schneider.

8. PRUNUS TRIFLORA Roxburgh

PRUNUS TRIFLORA
 1. Roxburgh Hort. Bengal 38. 1814. 2. Ibid. Fl. Indica 2:501. 1824. 3.
Schneider Handb. Laubh. 1:627. 1892. 4. Bailey Cornell Sta. Bul. 62.
1894. 5. Waugh Plum Cult. 42. 1901.
P. domestica. 6. Maximowicz Mel. Biol. 11:678. 1883.
P. hattan Tamari. 7. Bailey An. Hort. 30. 1889.
P. communis. 8. Forbes and Hemsley Jour. Linn. Soc. 23:219. 1886-88.
P. japonica of horticulturists (not P. japonica of Thunberg).

Tree twenty to thirty feet in height, vigorous; trunk six to twelve inches
in diameter, straight; bark thick, rough, numerous corky elevations
especially on the branches, reddish or cinnamon-brown, peach-like;
branches long, upright-spreading, much forked, brash and often splitting
at the forks; branchlets thick, straight, glaucous and glabrous, at first light
red, growing darker the second year; lenticels few or many, usually small
but conspicuous, light in color.
Winter-buds small and obtuse, free or appressed; leaves borne
abundantly, small or of but medium size, oblong-obovate, point acuminate
or abrupt, prominent, base rounded, firm, thin, membranaceous, margins
finely and closely serrated, sometimes in two series, teeth usually
glandular; upper surface bright green, glabrous, lower surface dull,
whitish, glabrous or slightly pubescent on the veins; veins pronounced;
petioles one-half inch in length, stoutish, tinged with red; glands few or
several, usually globose, greenish; stipules lanceolate, very narrow, one-
half inch long, caducous.
Flowers expanding early, before, with or sometimes after the leaves,
first of the plum blossoms to appear, very abundant, three-quarters of an
inch in diameter; usually three springing from each flower-bud, often in
dense clusters on lateral spurs and lateral buds on one-year-old wood;
calyx-tube green, glabrous, campanulate or obconic; calyx-lobes acute to
obtuse glandular-serrate, erect, glabrous or pubescent; petals white, oval,
entire or crenate, with a short claw or tip; stamens about twenty-five,
shorter than the petals; anthers yellow, sometimes tinged with red; pistils
glabrous, longer than the stamens; pedicels one-half inch long, slender.
Fruit varying greatly in season, from very early to late; large, from one
to two inches in diameter, globular, heart-shaped or often somewhat
conical; cavity deep; apex conspicuously pointed; suture usually
prominent; color varies greatly but usually a bright red or yellow, never
blue or purple, lustrous, with little or no bloom; dots small, numerous,
 usually conspicuous; skin thin, tough, astringent; stem one-half inch in
length; flesh red or more often yellow, firm, fibrous, juicy; quality variable,
of distinct flavor, usually good; stone clinging tenaciously or nearly free,
small, rough or lightly pitted, oval to ovate, one edge grooved, the other
ridged.

A study of the botanical characters of the many Triflora plums

under cultivation fails to show any lines of cleavage whereby the
species can be divided. Of plums commonly grown in America it is
not very closely related to any unless it be Prunus simonii. There are
several plums from eastern and central Asia with which we are not
at all familiar in America that may show relationship with Prunus
triflora, chief of which are Prunus ichangana Schneider,[94] Prunus
thibetica Franchet[95] and Prunus bokhariensis Royle,[96] the last a
cultivated plum from northern India. These, in herbarium specimens,
have some characters reminding one of Prunus triflora, others of
Prunus domestica and still others, of Prunus cerasifera.
The Triflora, or Japanese,[97] plums are now cultivated in all parts
of the world where plums are grown; yet outside of Japan and China
they have been grown for their fruit less than half a century. Despite
the fact that these plums have been grown in Asia for several
centuries the wild form is not known. Indeed, there are doubts in
the minds of some as to whether it constitutes a distinct species,
Maximowicz, an authority on the flora of Japan, among others,
holding that it is but a form of Prunus domestica. Roxburgh in
naming it gave but little definite information in regard to the species,
but the herbarium specimens of his in the Kew Herbarium are readily
identified as identical with our Japanese plums.[98] The confusion
between Prunus triflora and Prunus domestica seems needless, as
the points of difference between these two species are several and
very distinct and constant, the resemblances between Prunus triflora
and some of the American species being much closer. So, too, the
effort, sometimes made, to make more than one species out of
Prunus triflora is straining a point, for though the types under
cultivation vary considerably yet the variations are not greater than
between varieties of other species of the genus Prunus.
Prunus triflora is almost certainly a native of China. According to
Georgeson and Sargent, who have made extensive botanical
explorations in the forests of Japan, there are no indigenous plum
trees in that country. Dr. K. Miyake, botanist at the Agricultural
College of the Imperial University, Tokyo, Japan, writes to this
Station,[99] that Prunus triflora does not grow wild in Japan but was
introduced there from China from two to four hundred years ago.
Bretschneider[100] in his treatise on The Study and Value of Chinese
Botanical Works says that the plum has been cultivated from ancient
times in China and this indicates that the original habitat was in that
country. Mr. F. N. Meyer, Agricultural Explorer for the United States
Department of Agriculture, who has made extensive agricultural
explorations in China, writes[101] that he has seen many trees of
Prunus triflora cultivated in the Chekiang Province and also about
Canton but that he had not found the species growing wild.
Roxburgh says[102] that the shrub had been “received from China
into our gardens in Bengal.” Forbes and Hemsley[103] state that
varieties of this plum are cultivated in China and that it occurs in the
wild state in the mountains near Peking as well as on the Tsunglin
range in Shensi and Kansu. These writers are, however, uncertain as
to where it is truly indigenous.
While the above and practically all evidence points to China as the
original home of Prunus triflora it is likely that the habitat of the
species cannot be accurately determined until western and
southwestern China have been explored by botanists, these regions
as yet being almost unknown to foreign scientists.
Notwithstanding the illustrious work of Kaempfer, Thunberg,
Siebold and Fortune in sending to Europe the choicest plants of
Japan and China, Prunus triflora seems to have reached the Old
World through America at a very recent date. At least the species
was not cultivated for its fruit in Europe until introduced from the
United States as Japanese plums, and even yet they are but barely
known in European orchards. The species was introduced into this
country from Japan about 1870 by a Mr. Hough of Vacaville,
California. According to Bailey,[104] who has given much attention to
these plums, Mr. Hough obtained his trees from a Mr. Bridges, United
States Consul to Japan. John Kelsey, Berkeley, California, produced
the first ripe fruit of the Triflora plums in America in 1876 and 1877,
and impressed by their value began recommending them. Owing to
Mr. Kelsey’s efforts the propagation of these plums was begun on a
large scale about 1883 by W. P. Hammon & Co., of Oakland, who
commemorated Mr. Kelsey’s labors by naming the plum after him.
The success of the Kelsey started the importation and origination of
varieties and a veritable boom in Japanese plums was soon under
way.
This fruit is a most valuable addition to our pomology, no less than
ninety-two varieties now being under cultivation in America. At first
it was thought desirable only for the southern states, but it proved
to be nearly as hardy as the Domestica plums in the northern states
and was soon widely distributed north and south. Beyond question it
has suffered from over-praise, which has led to over-planting. As
was of necessity the case, many untested and worthless varieties
were offered fruit-growers, and these, with the failure of some of the
extravagant claims for the really meritorious varieties, have given the
Triflora plums a bad reputation with many fruit-growers. Now we
have cultivated plums of this species for forty years and there has
been time for the excitement of their discovery and the consequent
reaction to abate making it possible to arrive more nearly at their
true place in pomology.
The plums of this species possess several striking features that
commend them to fruit-growers. Undoubtedly the most valuable
attribute of the Triflora plums as cultivated fruits is their wide range
of adaptability. All must admit that this group of varieties is less
valuable than the Domestica varieties where both succeed, but the
Triflora plums are adapted to a much wider range of country and of
conditions than the Domesticas. But even where both types of plums
succeed the newer plum introduces several very desirable features
quite aside from additional variety which the many distinct sorts
furnish. Thus, as a species, the Trifloras are more vigorous,
productive, earlier in coming in bearing and more free from diseases,
especially black-knot and leaf-blight, than the Domestica plums. The
Trifloras are also less subject to curculio than most of the native and
European species. They keep longer and ship as well as the better
known Europeans. As compared with native varieties the plums from
Japan are larger, handsomer and better flavored and keep and ship
better. Some disadvantages are that they blossom so early as to be
often caught by spring frosts; they are quite subject to brown-rot;
for most part they are tenacious clingstones; the species, all in all, is
less hardy to cold than the Domestica plums; lastly, they are inferior
in quality to the varieties from Europe. The last fault is so serious
that, though the average for the Triflora plums is high, making them
unquestionably more desirable inhabitants of the orchard than any
of the native species, they cannot compete with the Domesticas
where the two types can be equally well grown.
The botanical differences between these Asiatic plums and those
from Europe and America are most interesting. In 1859 Asa Gray
called attention to the striking resemblances between the east coast
floras of Asia and America. The Triflora plum is one of the plants
which furnishes substantial evidence of this similarity and of the
dissimilarity of the east and west coast floras of the two
hemispheres. In general aspect the trees of the Triflora plums in
summer or winter are much more like those of the American species
than like those from Europe or West Asia; so, too, the fruits are
more alike in appearance and in quality, and the peach-like foliage of
the Trifloras might easily be mistaken for that of some of our
varieties of Hortulana or Munsoniana. In the manner in which the
buds are borne and in vernation the resemblance of the Oriental
species to the Americanas, Hortulanas and Munsonianas is again
most striking. In Asiatic and American species the buds are borne in
twos and threes, while in the European species they are more often
single or double.
The importance of this similarity of the Triflora plums to the most
common American species is seen when Gray’s reason for the
likenesses between the two floras is considered. This, briefly, is that
similar types of post-glacial plants should persist in areas having like
geographical positions and like climates; hence east-coast plants in
one hemisphere should be expected to be similar to those of the
east coast of the other hemisphere and the same with the west
coast. Triflora plums are near of kin to American plums, then,
because they have been evolved under similar conditions. This is a
reason why these plums from Japan are adapted to so wide a range
of country in America, and why, too, they are so free from the
fungus troubles which attack European plums, but from which
American plums suffer but little.
As might be expected from their nearness of kin the Triflora plums
hybridize readily with the American species and especially with the
Hortulanas and Munsonianas, the species they most resemble.
Unfortunately an amalgamation of the Oriental plums with the
Americanas is not so easily accomplished and that with the
Domesticas is still more difficult. Hybrids with Prunus simonii are
easily made and the progeny as a rule have much merit. Hybrids of
the Trifloras with our native species give most promising results, a
number of them being described in The Plums of New York. The fact
that the Trifloras have been cultivated for several centuries, at least,
means in their hybridization with American species that there is an
amalgamation of domesticated characters with the similar but wilder
characters of our native species.
It has been very difficult to establish a satisfactory nomenclature
for the Triflora plums now grown in America. In spite of the excellent
work of Berckmans,[105] Bailey[106] and Waugh,[107] in bringing
order out of what was at one time utter confusion, there is still a
great deal of uncertainty as to the identification of some varieties.
The confusion began with the first extensive importation of these
plums from Japan when names which the Japanese applied to
classes or groups or the localities from which the plums came were
made to apply in America to definite varieties. Many of the names
under which the plums were imported have had to be dropped and
the varieties boldly renamed. Another source of confusion has been
that these, of all plums, seem most variable under changed
conditions. Local environment in many instances in America changes
somewhat the habit and appearance of varieties, making it difficult
to decide whether two or more specimens of the same sort from
different localities are identical varieties or distinct. Curiously
enough, too, the trees of some varieties of plums seem to bear
unlike fruit in different years, especially in the matter of time of
ripening; that is, trees of some varieties do not always ripen their
fruit in the same sequence, being earlier than another variety one
year and possibly later the next. All fruits are more or less variable in
this respect, but the Triflora plums are remarkably so, a fact that has
added to the confusion in their nomenclature, since it adds to the
difficulty of identifying varieties.
The cultivated varieties of Prunus triflora are also very diverse as
regards tree-characters, especially as to vigor, hardiness and time of
maturity of the fruit. The differences seem to be horticultural or
those that come from cultivation, rather than botanical. Indeed, it
seems impossible to place the numerous varieties in horticultural
groups that are marked with any great degree of definiteness. A
distinction of groups based on color is sometimes made, but the one
character is insufficient to have classificatory value. In Japan,
according to Georgeson, a division of the species is made with shape
as the line of division. He says[108] “The round plums are designated
by the term botankio, while those of an oval or pointed shape are
called hattankio.” The varieties are sometimes loosely grouped into
yellow and red-fleshed sorts. A serviceable classification would have
to be founded on several or a considerable number of characters.
Such a classification at present is impossible.

9. PRUNUS SIMONII Carrière

 1. Carrière Rev. Hort. 111. 1872.[109]

Tree small, of medium vigor, upright, dense, hardy except in exposed

locations, unproductive; branches stocky, long, rough, thickly strewn with
small lenticels; branchlets slender, long, with internodes of medium
length, reddish, glabrous; leaf-buds intermediate in size, short, obtuse,
free.
Leaves folded upward, oblong-lanceolate to obovate, peach-like,
narrow, long, of medium thickness; upper surface dark green, smooth,
shining, lower surface pale green, not pubescent, with prominent midrib;
margin slightly crenate; petiole short, thick, faintly tinged red, often with
four large globose glands on the stalk.
Flower-buds numerous on one-year wood although found on spurs on
the older wood; flowers appearing very early, semi-hardy, small, pinkish-
white; borne singly or in pairs, often defective in pollen.
Fruit maturing early; one and three-quarters by two and one-quarter
inches in size, strongly oblate, compressed; cavity deep, wide, flaring,
regular, often slightly russeted; suture variable in depth, frequently
swollen near the apex which is flattened or strongly depressed; dark red
or purplish-red, overspread with waxy bloom; dots numerous, small, dark
colored, with russet center, inconspicuous; stem thick, characteristically
short being often one-quarter inch long; skin of medium thickness, tough,
bitter, adhering to the pulp; flesh rich yellow, medium juicy, tough, firm,
very mild sub-acid with a peculiar aromatic flavor; of fair quality; stone
clinging, about seven-eighths inch in diameter, roundish, flattened to
rather turgid, truncate at the base, tapering abruptly to a short point at
the apex, with characteristic rough surfaces; ventral suture narrow, acute
or with distinct wing; dorsal suture very blunt or acute, not grooved.

All that is known of the history and habitat of this species is that it
came from China in 1867 having been sent to the Paris Museum of
Natural History by Eugene Simon, a French consul in China. The
spontaneous form has not as yet been found. The general aspect of
the tree is more that of the peach than the plum and the drupes are
as much like apricots or nectarines as plums but when all characters
are considered the fruit can better be classed with the plums than
with any of the other stone-fruits named.