Post by castanea on Jun 20, 2010 14:10:31 GMT -5
Has anyone ever heard of this? Eaten it? Grown it? Looks like the French know about it:
"From southeast France and northwest Italy, in the Alps, grows a species of apricot tree that has been called in English the Briançon Apricot or Alpine Plum. It is exceedingly little known in North America, and I find it curious. The fruit resembles a golden cherry tomato, tastes like a plum, and botanists class it as a fuzzless little apricot."
Looks like there are a couple growing in Seattle:
"The three specimens in Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum, as most other plants in the collection there, suffer from too much shade cast by wild native trees, in this instance western red cedar and bigleaf maple. Nonetheless, the three apricot specimens do set fruit. They are shrubby, with the stoutest trunk over 4 inches thick, coated in cherry-like bark; the tallest is about 15 feet. I have read reports that this species can attain 20 feet in height. It would be interesting to see how much an improvement could be made if one grew specimens in proper sunshine, and if one pruned them. The arboretum trio are uncared for. I do not find them worthy as ornamentals, but believe their fruit, ripe in late August or September, is agreeable, and if more of us grew and experimented with this species, we might be pleasantly surprised."
Both quotes are from this site:
www.arthurleej.com/p-o-m-Sep03.html
"From southeast France and northwest Italy, in the Alps, grows a species of apricot tree that has been called in English the Briançon Apricot or Alpine Plum. It is exceedingly little known in North America, and I find it curious. The fruit resembles a golden cherry tomato, tastes like a plum, and botanists class it as a fuzzless little apricot."
Looks like there are a couple growing in Seattle:
"The three specimens in Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum, as most other plants in the collection there, suffer from too much shade cast by wild native trees, in this instance western red cedar and bigleaf maple. Nonetheless, the three apricot specimens do set fruit. They are shrubby, with the stoutest trunk over 4 inches thick, coated in cherry-like bark; the tallest is about 15 feet. I have read reports that this species can attain 20 feet in height. It would be interesting to see how much an improvement could be made if one grew specimens in proper sunshine, and if one pruned them. The arboretum trio are uncared for. I do not find them worthy as ornamentals, but believe their fruit, ripe in late August or September, is agreeable, and if more of us grew and experimented with this species, we might be pleasantly surprised."
Both quotes are from this site:
www.arthurleej.com/p-o-m-Sep03.html