The image here, taken last week, is of the only plum produced by our plum tree this year. There is nothing wrong with our tree. It’s a flowering plum tree, not a fruiting one.
In the spring, flowering plums produce gorgeous masses of flowers that are made even more beautiful by the trees’ purple leaves:
Leighton Archive image
Flowering plums produce few, if any, plums in the summer; they give their all in spring. But, when they do produce a plum, it often is considered to be a prize plum.
Plum trees were domesticated and cultivated into various types in China more than 2,000 years ago and eventually spread through Asia Minor and Europe with considerable help from the Romans. Our flowering version originally was a European version. It’s scientific binomial is Prunus cerasifera, but it’s usually marketed in the United States as a “Thundercloud Flowering Plum.” Here’s another image of our tree during this spring:
Leighton Archive image
(Brooklin, Maine)