[Sca-cooks] greengage plums

[David Friedman]

>At 07:10 AM 7/15/04 -0500, Bear wrote:
>>Greengage plums are a variety of plum having skin color of greenish yellow
>>or yellowish green.  They are named after Sir William Gage, an 18th Century
>>botanist, so I suspect they may be a post period hybrid.
>
>The modern tree could well be a post period 
>hybrid but it would very likely develop from a 
>yellow plum, possibly a native.  I have a native 
>plum (Klamath Plum, native to Western US) in my 
>backyard.  It is yellow but some other specimens 
>around town are red.  It would not surprise me 
>to learn the both yellow and red plums were 
>known to our ancestors.

My  memory is that, according to the Southmeadow 
Nursery catalog (they specialize in old and 
unusual fruit tree varieties, and seem well 
informed) the old name for the variety is "Reine 
Claude," and it existed at least by the early 
seventeenth century.

According to one online source:

"Called Reine-Claude in France, after Claude, the 
queen of François I, the greengage was brought to 
Britain in 1724 by Sir William Gage. The 
seedlings lost their labels en route, and soon 
became known as greengages after their British 
patron."
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com