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Prunus maritima
Also called Shore Plum, Graves' Beach Plum
Prunus maritima, the beach plum, is a species of plum native to the East Coast of the United States. It is grown commercially for its fruit and resists certain pests.
The seed pits of the fruits are toxic due to their hydrocyanic acid content.
The species can be found from Maine south to Maryland. Although sometimes listed as extending north to Canada's New Brunswick, the species is not known from collections there and does not appear in the most authoritative works on the flora of that province.
The species is grown commercially for fruit and value-added products like jam. Taste of ripe fruit is prevailingly sweet, though individual bushes range in flavor and some are sour or slightly bitter. About the size of grapes, beach plums are much smaller in size when compared to the longer cultivated Asian varieties found in the supermarket, though are resilient to many North American stone fruit pests, such as black knot fungus. A number of cultivars have been selected for larger and better-flavored fruit, including Resigno, Jersey Gem (Rutgers), ECOS, Eastham, Hancock and Squibnocket.
Prunus adenopoda · Red stinkwood · Prunus aitchisonii · Alabama cherry · Prunus alaica · Allegheny plum · American plum · Prunus amplifolia · Almond · Desert peach · Chickasaw plum · Prunus annularis
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Prunus maritima by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
