| Prunus salicina | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Prunus salicina Lindl. |
Prunus salicina (syn. Prunus triflora or Prunus thibetica; also called Japanese plum) is a small deciduous tree native to China, and now also grown in Korea, Japan, the United States, and Australia. It grows up to 10 m tall, and has reddish-brown shoots. The leaves are 6-12 cm long and 2.5-5 cm broad, with a serrated margin. The flowers are produced in early spring, 2 cm diameter with five white petals. The fruit is a drupe 4-7 cm in diameter with yellow-pink flesh; it can be harvested in the summer. When fully ripe it can be eaten raw. Prunus salicina should not be confused with the Ume, the Japanese name for Prunus mume, a related species of plum also grown in Japan, Korea, and China. Another tree, Prunus japonica, is also a separate species despite having a Latin name similar to Prunus salicina's common name.
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Uses
- Culinary uses
In China, candied fruits are also sold preserved, flavoured with sugar, salt, and liquorice. In Japan, it is also used half ripe as a flavouring in a liqueur called sumomo shu (すもも酒),photo and in China a liquor is made from the fruits.[1]
- Medicinal uses
The fruits are also used in Traditional Chinese medicine.
Etymology
The species name is derived from the Latin word for willow.[2] Prunus salicina is referred to in Chinese as 李 (pinyin: lǐ); it is also commonly called 中国李 (pinyin: Zhōngguó lǐ, lit. "Chinese plum"); and for its fruit, 李子 (pinyin: lǐzi). In Japanese, it is called sumomo (kanji: 李 or 酸桃, hiragana: すもも, katakana: スモモ; lit. "sour peach" or "sour fruit"). In Korean, it is called jadu (자두), which derives from a corruption of the original Sino-Korean form, 紫桃 jado (lit. "purple peach"). The surname Li (李; pinyin: Lǐ; also sometimes spelled "Lee", lit. "plum tree") is the most common surname in China, and also in the world. The Vietnamese equivalent is Ly. The Korean equivalent is Yi (hangul: 이, hanja: 李; also romanized "Lee" or "Rhee", or, less commonly, "Li", "I", or "Yee").
Cultivation
Many different varieties of Prunus salicina, some being hybrid species, are cultivated in China. Prunus salicina is also widely cultivated in Japan and Korea. It has also been introduced to a number of other countries. For example, it is widely grown in Australia, and dominates the stone fruit industry in Western Australia.[3] Most of the fresh plums sold in North American supermarkets are P. salicina cultivars. The ancestral stocks of these cultivars were greatly improved in Japan and thence introduced into the United States in the latter half of the 19th century, where subsequent breeding produced the cultivars whose fruit is commonly sold in American markets today. Many of these American cultivars have been exported to other countries, including back to Japan, their ancestral place of origin. The traditional East Asian cultivars produced fruit that is quite small, whereas the modern varieties sold in Japan, Australia, and North America are typically larger.
