In N / C Florida , we used to see a lot of godforsaken plums in two variety : Chickasaw and flatwoods .
The former we planted in our front pace food timberland , and then latergrafted onto with multiple different coinage of plums .
As for the flatwoods plum , we also had a ego - plant tree in the side K which never produced much but looked pretty .
I ’ve always been intrigue with wild fruit . Some of them are quite good ! We found that to be the causa with these terrific American plums I reap by the side of the road in Kentucky , just north of the Tennessee molding .
We ’d never seen this species before , but it was covering the roadside in large patches . After spotting the first few lump of trees and see them hung with red fruits , I had to pull over the caravan at the next convenient blot and see what sort of fruit they were .
( My wife and youngster are used to me pulling over the car for random plants . In fact , I call up this may be one of the rationality why my teens prefer to drive when we are on long road trips . )
My dead reckoning was that they were a crabapple , or perhaps a mayhaw . They were punishing and red . I filled my chapeau and brought it back to the car , then had one of the kids open one of them with my pocketknife while I was drive .
To my delight , it had a pit inside . unfounded plum ! But it was a metal money we had n’t seen in Florida or Alabama . The leaf are much big than those of the wild plums I ’ve seen here , and the yield is much redder .
Upon some investigation , they are almost certainlyPrunus americana .
concord to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center , the American plum tree is :
The plum are eaten fresh and used in jellies and preserves , and are also eat by many kind of doll . Numerous naturalize varieties with improved fruit have been develop . A handsome ornamental with large flowers and relatively large fruit , American Plum is also grown for erosion controller , go around by root sprouts . ”
That sounds just like what we see .
When we got home a couple of years afterward , we wipe out some of them and come up them to be quite good . The mature 1 are sweet with a little tartness . Rachel made most of them into a half - dry quart of jamming , which the children bask .
It was very well !
Of course , we write all the pits and will be stratifying them in the electric refrigerator to see if they will germinate .
We do n’t know if they ’ll grow here in Lower Alabama , two zones south of where they were thriving , but if they can , we want them in our yard ! Apparently their range does extend into the Florida panhandle , so we should be good . If we can get them to grow , we ’ll tot them to the industrial plant baby’s room as well .
