White Empress Plum

Prunus duracina - White Empress Plum

This white plum long sowed confusion at the Jardin des Plantes, where it was mistakenly distributed under the name "Hyacinth Plum," even though the latter is purple. A misunderstanding that illustrates the importance of rigorous nomenclature in pomology.

The White Empress wears a pale green coat, yellowing as it matures, marked with uneven red spots that turn bluish-violet under the bloom. Pierre-Antoine Poiteau noted that these singular markings, absent from earlier literature, appeared every year on the Museum's fruits, a living testament to the variability of cultivars.

This modestly sized plum tree forms a rounded and branched crown. Its pubescent buds, sometimes tinged with violet, bear small, well-swollen eyes, often grouped in threes.

The elliptical leaves, a tender green, have unevenly rounded teeth and a petiole equipped with two brown glands.

The immaculate white flowers, 23 millimeters wide, bloom in twos or threes on short downy peduncles.

The oval fruit, 41 millimeters long, conceals beneath its thick skin a crunchy, slightly fibrous and acerbic yellow flesh, but generously juicy, sweet and flavorful. Its small oblong pit adheres only weakly to the pulp.

Ripening at the end of August, this excellent plum is reminiscent of the famous Perdrigons in its quality, despite a touch of astringency that gives it all its character.

This plate is extracted from the Traité des Arbres Fruitiers by Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin, a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalistic 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.