In article ,
stuart noble wrote:
On 17/09/2012 09:07, Emery Davis wrote:
On 09/16/2012 11:47 PM, Bob Hobden wrote:
Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from
which they make a favourite jam.

That was my thought also.

Do they come in 3 colours (red yellow and green? We have some locally
that were obviously planted by the council to form a kind of high hedge.
Small round fruit about 10 mm in diameter but began dropping about a
month ago. They didn't look particularly appetising and the birds
certainly weren't interested, so I left them alone too.

Quite possibly Prunus cerasifera but, as I said, I don't know how
to distinguish it from some varieties of P. domestica without a
chromosome count - an expert MIGHT be able to, but I wouldn't bet
on it. P. domestica is P. cerasifera x spinosa (sloe), but the
latter is a hybrid of P. cerasifera and Microcerasus microcarpa!

I have also failed to track down EXACTLY what mirabelles are,
though I think that they are a variety of P. domestica ssp
interstitia. However, we had a very good gage that was ancient
and died of fungal infection. One of its seedlings produced red,
rather insipid, fruit and the other produced fruit indistinguishable
(as far as I can tell) from that of P. cerasifera. So we have kept
it, as it cooks well.

So, unless a tree looks exceptional in some way, it's probably just
worth calling it a wild plum, and using it or ignoring it to taste.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.