General Plant Information (Edit)
Plant Habit: Shrub
Tree
Life cycle: Perennial
Sun Requirements: Full Sun
Full Sun to Partial Shade
Water Preferences: Mesic
Soil pH Preferences: Slightly acid (6.1 – 6.5)
Neutral (6.6 – 7.3)
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 3 -40 °C (-40 °F) to -37.2 °C (-35)
Maximum recommended zone: Zone 8b
Plant Height: 6 - 12 feet, to 20 -- 35 feet
Plant Spread: 6 to 12 feet, to 20 to 30 feet
Leaves: Deciduous
Fruit: Showy
Edible to birds
Fruiting Time: Late summer or early fall
Flowers: Showy
Flower Color: White
Bloom Size: Under 1"
Flower Time: Spring
Uses: Windbreak or Hedge
Dye production
Erosion control
Flowering Tree
Will Naturalize
Edible Parts: Fruit
Eating Methods: Raw
Cooked
Wildlife Attractant: Bees
Birds
Resistances: Drought tolerant
Propagation: Seeds: Stratify seeds: 2 to 3 months at 40 degrees
Pollinators: Flies
Bees
Miscellaneous: With thorns/spines/prickles/teeth
Monoecious

Image
Common names
  • Wild Plum
  • American plum
  • Goose Plum
  • Plum

Photo Gallery
Location: Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-04-16
shrubs in white bloom
Location: Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois
Date: 2015-06-19
small tree form in summer
Location: Croom Tract; Withlacoochee SF - Hernando County, Florida
Date: 14-MAR-2005
Photo courtesy of Brian Ahern

Date: c. 1911
photo from Hedrick's 'Plums of New York', 1911
Location: Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois
Date: 2018-08-22
summer foliage
Location: Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois
Date: 2018-08-22
one plum left, most were earlier
Location: Glen Ellyn, Illinois
Date: August in 1980's
fruits and foliage
Location: Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-04-16
several shrubs in white bloom
Location: All pictures taken in/on my gardens/greenhouse/property
Date: 2017-05-06
Location: Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois
Date: 2018-08-22
a few shrubs together as a colony
Location: Aurora, Illinois
Date: April in 1980's
close-up of flowers
Location: Glen Ellyn, Illinois
Date: August in 1980's
fruits and foliage
Location: Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois
Date: 2015-06-19
trunks of tree form
Location: northern Delaware
Date: 2015-05-01
maturing shrubs in white bloom
Location: northern Delaware
Date: 2015-05-01
inside shrubs looking at flowers
Location: northern Delaware
Date: 2015-04-30
trunks of tree form
Location: Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-07-30
shrubs in summer
Location: Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-07-30
shrubs in summer
Location: Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-08-13
some plums among upper branches
Location: Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-08-13
summer leaves

USDA photo
Location: Aurora, Illinois
Date: April in 1980's
shrubs in white bloom
This plant is tagged in:
Image

Comments:
  • Posted by ILPARW (southeast Pennsylvania - Zone 6b) on Jan 22, 2018 3:48 PM concerning plant:
    In the early 1950's three American Plums (or Wild Plums) were planted in a big bed close to the new modern house of my parents along with Pfitzer Junipers nearby, a Winged Euonymus, and a Bolleana White Poplar. The plum shrubs got about 10 feet high and inter-branched with each other. They produced delicious pink-orange round plums about 1 to 1.5 inches wide that we ate raw and my dad made plum liqueur from them. They lasted until about 2003 when new home owners redid the landscape. American Plum grows in various upland sites in a native range from southern New England down to northwest Florida to eastern Oklahoma, up the Great Plains to eastern Montana and all the Dakotas to southern Minnesota & Wisconsin, all Illinois & Indiana up into southern Michigan and the southern tip of Ontario. It grows 1.5 to 2.5 feet/year and lives 35 to 65 years. The doubly-toothed leaves get 2 to 4 inches long x 1.25 to 2 inches wide and develop a pale yellow fall color. It can be either a large shrub or small tree with stiff branching and some stiff sharp branch spurs. The white flowers in late April to mid-May emerge before leaves and have a strong sweet spicy smell. The delicious pink-orange plums mature in late July to August to early September, depending on latitude. It has shallow, fibrous roots and is easy to transplant. I don't know of any conventional nurseries that sell it anymore as in the 50's and 60's, but some native plant and mail order nurseries sell some. In nature it is just found in some occasional local sites.

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