Yellow fruited beach plum in Cape Cod

I've been trying to locate yellow fruited beach plum stock, which is said to naturally occur on Cape Cod. If anybody here is on Cape Cod, I'd like an opportunity to obtain fruit or seed of the yellow variety. Can trade or purchase.

With the storm on the way, I guess this is a mistimed question!

Did you ever find one?

I have a beach plum, but it's too small yet to fruit.

Darius, I have located someone that has 3 mature plants that produce fruit and obtained seed last fall. I was promised scion wood to try grafting of some to my existing plants, but that fell through this year. I'm going to keep trying. The germ plasma repositories apparently do not have any yellow fruit types either. The trait is apparently recessive and the habitat (cape cod) is likely under pressure or even potentially destroyed. The wild yellow fruited variety is called Flava.

I like yellow fruited small fruits because they are less susceptible to bird pressures and tend to also have slightly different flavors. My seed were winter planted and hopefully will be coming up soon (May). I expect I will have to cross the seedlings to get some seed to produce yellow fruit since the source has numerous purple varieties as well and the trait is recessive (according to the source). I'm trying to convince him to take some spring cuttings and plant them to start more plants and maybe sell me a couple.

Beech plums are a great alternative to plum trees for those of us without a lot of space, which becomes more valuable as population density increases. Add to that late summer fruiting, undemanding habit you get a real winner. I encourage you to sample from several vendors as there is definitely some differences in flavor and size of fruit among them. Fruit does need to be protected from birds, at least the purple variety. I should have seed for "purples" this fall if you are interested. I have about 1/2 dozen plants just fruiting in the past two years and the seed is very easy to start.

Would be a good plant to write about.

John

Thanks for the information, John. A DG member who has a summer house out on Cape Cod sent me 4 jars of beach plum jelly when I first moved here, which is why I later bought a seedling. I could ask if she has any yellow ones, but the jam she sent was plum colored.

Darius, I would love to have you ask if she can find some. The yellow fruited ones are supposed to occur naturally on the Cape and she may already know of a location for some plants. Seed or cuttings, with cuttings being the best way to go (as long as legal and not damaging the plants). This is important to me and I would pay reasonable costs gladly.

Thanks

This message was edited Mar 12, 2012 11:57 PM

Why don't you send her a dmail? She's bbrookrd, and I was wrong... she's on Nantucket, not the Cape.
http://davesgarden.com/members/bbrookrd/