Plums are taxonomically complex with many names, reflecting their cultural importance; stones of Domestic Plum, Cherry Plum and Blackthorn all appear in Neolithic remains across Europe. Domestic Plum cultivars were traditionally split into six fruiting groups, but modern genetics suggests four clades: European plums, Mirabelles, Greengages and D'Agen prune plums. It is variously called European Plum, Garden Plum or Wild Plum.
The origin of this very widely cultivated species is impossible to pin down, but it is thought to have arisen in the Caucasus, where the ranges of Cherry Plum and Blackthorn overlap. It is widespread across England, Wales and eastern Ireland, in gardens, orchards and 'feral' in hedgerows, woodland edges and waste ground, often suckering, and less frequent in western Ireland and northern Scotland. An archaeophyte in Britain and Ireland.
No confirmed truly wild populations exist, and genetic analysis points to Prunus domestica being a natural hybrid of Cherry Plum (P. cerasifera) and Blackthorn (P. spinosa), since widely cultivated. Monoecious, with hermaphrodite flowers. Insect-pollinated and dispersed by birds and mammals.
Small (10m), with a dense, tangled branching habit. Bark purple-brown, roughly fissured. Twigs brown, soon glabrous, spineless, with long acute buds. Leaves elliptical or obovate, 8cm, dull grey-green and crinkled, with downy underside veins and red glands on the petiole. Flowers creamy white (20-25mm), single or paired on old twigs, in April. Fruit an edible, sweet plum, variable in size and colour, with a flattened sharp-edged stone. Bullace differs: downy, often thorny twigs, purple fruit, blunter clinging stone.
'Wild' forms grow happily unaided and, where naturalised, sucker prolifically into dense thickets; they can be coppiced and readily regrow, but are rarely cultivated thus. Trees are usually planted as cultivars: 'Victoria' is the best-known, self-fertile and famed for large succulent fruit, with others including 'Opal', 'Marjorie's Seedling', 'Guinevere' and 'Czar'. They thrive in full sun on fertile, well-drained soils. Thin developing fruit in early summer, prune lightly in summer, and keep an open 'goblet' form.
Flowers attract pollinating insects in spring. Fruits loved by resident and visiting thrushes. Small mammals gorge themselves before a hard winter.
Aphids are particularly attracted to this species, as are sap-sucking brown scale insects and the larvae of the Plum Fruit Moth. Silver leaf fungal disease can kill whole branches. Domestic Plum is considered a high-risk host for the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, which is significantly affecting a wide range of plants in mainland Europe.
Fruit production. The ‘wild’ form adds diversity to woodland edge or hedgerow.
