Golden Drop Plum

Prunus apiana - Golden Drop Plum

Long confused with the Mirabelle, with which it shares its golden color, the Golden Drop Plum nevertheless distinguishes itself radically: round where the Mirabelle is oval, it has a delicate flavor that makes it more akin to the Greengage. Poiteau himself suspected a hybrid origin between these two noble varieties.

This rare fruit, which ripens in the last two weeks of August, fascinates as much by its beauty as by its fragility: its skin often splits at the top when ripe, attracting flies fond of its fragrant flesh.

Whitish green at the beginning of its growth, the Golden Drop Plum gradually takes on an intense yellow as it ripens, marked with purple dots and spots on the side exposed to the sun. A fine white bloom covers its smooth skin, crossed by a discreet purple eye.

The fruit, ordinarily very abundant on the tree, measures about 27 millimeters high and 29 millimeters in diameter, slightly flattened at both ends. Its flesh, initially firm like that of the Greengage, becomes tender and melting when ripe, revealing delicious juice and a most delicate flavor.

The tree is distinguished by its violet-black buds in the sun, ash-green in the shade, and its oval-oblong leaves of a tender green bordered with rounded teeth. The flowers, small and numerous, are born in pairs on short peduncles.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers (Treatise on Fruit Trees), a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference for 19th-century naturalist illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates from the golden age of illustrated botany.