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Damons? Plums?
In article , Sacha writes: | On 14/8/08 16:14, in article , | "Martin" wrote: | | Blame the Romans? | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damson | | I always thought they were just wild plums. | | Thanks, Martin. Have printed that off for them outdoors! But warn them it's got it hopelessly wrong! Here is the situation. Prunus domestica originated in the Near East in prehistoric times (or possibly JUST into historic ones), and spread west with the Neolithic farmers. Insanely, it is classified by the botanical taxonomists as introduced, to distinguish it from beech (which is classified as native), despite them having almost identical pollen records. But either could have been carried across the channel by a bird. Bluntly, nobody knows, and the classifications are nonsense. They don't even know if it is a natural hexaploid or was bred; anyway, it is a cross between P. spinosa and P. cerasifera, the sloe and myrobalan. The wild ones are normally called bullaces in the UK, but there is essentially no difference between a damson and a bullace, and some people reserve the name bullace for small, yellow plums. The first paragraph of the following abstract explains all :-) http://www.actahort.org/books/283/283_2.htm If you tell the French people that a damson bears the same relationship to a Victoria plum as a peche de vigne does to a supermarket peach, they may understand. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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