[Sca-cooks] greengage plums

[Mark Hendershott]

At 11:42 AM 7/15/04 -0700, you wrote:
>>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

Yes, I expect that explains it.

Simon