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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the August 4, 2008 Newsletter, issued from the forest near Natchez, Mississippi; elevation ~400ft (120m), ~N31.47°, ~W91.29°:
MEXICAN PLUMS FRUITING
In my March 14th, 2004 Newsletter I wrote from my hermiting camp near here that our local Mexican Plums, PRUNUS MEXICANA, were flowering. Comparing them to the more common Chickasaw Plums, I wrote that the species "... doesn't form thickets, the flowers are much larger (1 inch across, 2.5 cm), and instead of its smaller branches being 'half twig, half spine,' as was the case with the Chickasaw Plum, this one's smaller twigs are
"three-quarters twig, one-quarter spine." Also, the tree is larger, ±15-20 feet tall."
Nowadays frosted, reddish purple Mexican Plum plums are prettily forming on trees at woods edges, as shown above.
The word "frosted" as used here, in more botanical terms, means "covered with a glaucous bloom." Glaucosity is the silvery sheen covering the fruits, which you can rub off with a finger. The inch-broad plums have thick, sweet, succulent flesh. The trees I see are about ten feet high.