North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Title: Re: [NAFEX] need ID: cherry or plum?

I have a tree of Redheart plum that looks very much like this - deep red, firm flesh, very small pit, and the flavor is more like cherry than plum.  If he has rooted cuttings of it, it seems more likely that the tree is a plum, since plums will root more readily from cuttings than cherries will.   The tree pictured in bloom looks like a Japanese plum, to me.  With a multi-trunked tree such as that, it wouldn't be that hard to keep it to seven feet with pruning, especially since zone 5 is about the limit of it's hardiness, and in a colder climate it would likely be a smaller size.
    My vote would be a plum.
-Lon Rombough
>

> On the Edible Landscaping Forum of GardenWeb, a guy has a 7 foot tree
> with fruit the size of small plums, but the bark of a cherry tree.  He
> has posted photos of it at the link below.
> http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/edible/msg0620170317394.html?10
>
> He has successfully rooted 2 cuttings of it.  He doesn't know what it
> is.  He says it has a black cherry flavor.  He lives in zone 5 in Ohio.
> Any ideas what it is?
>
> -Mark Lee