[Sca-cooks] greengage plums
David Friedman
ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Thu Jul 15 11:42:45 PDT 2004
>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
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