Wild Goose Plum Tree
The Wild-goose Plum (Prunus hortulana, Bailey) is a natural hybrid between the species, Americana and angustifolia. It is supposed to have originated in Kentucky. It grows wild from Maryland to Texas -a tall, straight-limbed, thornless tree, with thin, oblong, flat leaves, and thick-skinned, juicy fruit. It is a better fruit tree than either of its parents, and has given rise to several varieties of garden plums of which the Miner and the Wayland are familiar types. The Miner group are commonly seen in Northern orchards; the Waylands in the South.
The little beach plum of the Atlantic coast, the sloes of the Alleghanies and the South, the leathery-leaved Pacific plum, and the sand plum of the semi-arid plains are all distinct species. There is scarcely a region of the country that has not its own wild plum; and each species shows a tendency to improve under cultivation.