"echinosum" wrote in message ...


;968925 Wrote:
InSo, 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.

I understand what you are saying, but we need to understand that "wild
plum" here doesn't mean "the wild ancestor of the domestic plum", which
it is at risk of being misunderstood as. I don't think such a wild
ancestor really exists freely growing in the wild and reproducing. I
don't think that's what you get if you germinate domestic plumstones.

"Mirabelle", whatever that means, is commonly sold as a hedging plant,
so if some trees are not inconsistent with the kind of thing that is
sold is Mirabelle, lets call them that, being aware it is a rather vague
description.

The true golden Mirabelles of France are said to be...
Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca
But I think this is a good piece of research for a graduate to sort out by
using DNA.


--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

In article ,
echinosum wrote:

InSo, 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.

I understand what you are saying, but we need to understand that "wild
plum" here doesn't mean "the wild ancestor of the domestic plum", which
it is at risk of being misunderstood as. I don't think such a wild
ancestor really exists freely growing in the wild and reproducing. I
don't think that's what you get if you germinate domestic plumstones.

It doesn't, and we don't know if it ever did!

"Mirabelle", whatever that means, is commonly sold as a hedging plant,
so if some trees are not inconsistent with the kind of thing that is
sold is Mirabelle, lets call them that, being aware it is a rather vague
description.

Or bullace? Because that's the native/naturalised UK form of
P. domestica.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I'm just wondering if there's anything else I could be confusing them
with. These had dropped but were rock hard as I recall

These are like the ones we have. They are much smaller than plums
though; more the size of cherries.

http://tinyurl.com/8odpfxg


Thanks. Very similar, and maybe next year they'll be sweeter :-)

"stuart noble" wrote in message
...

I'm just wondering if there's anything else I could be confusing them
with. These had dropped but were rock hard as I recall

These are like the ones we have. They are much smaller than plums
though; more the size of cherries.

http://tinyurl.com/8odpfxg


Thanks. Very similar, and maybe next year they'll be sweeter :-)

Last year they were very sweet, but from what I see here, there have been
many problems with produce this year.

My own plums didn't happen and my apples were rubbish. I will be trying out
some of the apples on the reserve.
--
--

http://www.shop.helpforheroes.org.uk/

In article ,
says...

Nobody picks these fruits but these days that's no indication as to
their taste. They don't pick the damsons, sloes, or blackberries either
Too busy staring at their phones :-)



Well, I always said I was a nobody! I pick blackberries, wild plums,
sloes (after frost), and damsons if I knew where there were any.

I've even picked apples from a neighbours garden, because they were too
busy staring at their phone!

I would soon get bored staring at my phone, there is nothing to see
except my phonebook and where I live, mobile signals only appear when
you reach the top of the hills.

--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

"stuart noble" wrote in message
...

Nobody picks these fruits but these days that's no indication as to their
taste. They don't pick the damsons, sloes, or blackberries either Too busy
staring at their phones :-)

Ain't that just the truth. My plums and damsons have been very poor this
year, but a mile away there is a plum tree in someone's front garden that is
absolutely dripping with nice yellow fruit which is just falling on to the
pavement.
It looks like a "Syston" plum, a variety which was developed in the next
village to me (Syston) hence the name.
Having googled for Syston plum, it is mentioned somewhere on
http://www.goscote.co.uk/fruit.htm (which is a hard site to search) which is
a nursery the other side of Syston! so maybe it did not catch on outside
Leicestershire. My plum trees are Syston plums but they are approaching
the end of their life, as are a lot of the ones around here.
They are a good-sized plum, for cooking and eating, and deserve to be more
widely recognised and taken up. IIRC they were very popular when they were
developed, but that may be 50-60 years ago which is probably when mine were
planted.
They will probably be extinct soon. Can I persuade anyone on here who would
like to plant a plum tree to try a Syston plum?
It sounds like the website I quoted has them - and if anyone has them, they
should have, although how you could order off there I cannot see - maybe
they have another website under Goscote Nurseries. What I quoted was the
only site I found that mentioned the lovely Syston plum but there's no way
of refining the search once you get to the site.
I feel quite evangelistic about the Syston plum now I realise it's dying out
because of lack of promotion outside its home ground, so to speak. Here's
your chance to save a heritage plum! A secret one wot we only had around
here ;-)

On 17/09/2012 20:16, Roger Tonkin wrote:
In article ,
says...

Nobody picks these fruits but these days that's no indication as to
their taste. They don't pick the damsons, sloes, or blackberries either
Too busy staring at their phones :-)



Well, I always said I was a nobody! I pick blackberries, wild plums,
sloes (after frost), and damsons if I knew where there were any.

I've even picked apples from a neighbours garden, because they were too
busy staring at their phone!

I would soon get bored staring at my phone, there is nothing to see
except my phonebook and where I live, mobile signals only appear when
you reach the top of the hills.


Yes, IME sloes are best left till after the first frost, but people
insist on picking them in August!
We have a couple of small damsons on the edge of a children's
playground, but nobody notices. Kids today!