Prune plum
Prunus domestica domestica
The prune plums are the drying and cooking group of the European plum: oval to oblong fruit, deep blue-black under a heavy waxy bloom, with firm amber flesh and a flattened stone that lifts cleanly away. Sugar-rich and comparatively dry, they hold their shape in baking and dry whole without splitting, which is what separates them in use from the softer round dessert plums.
Not native. Planted in orchards and gardens and long naturalised from discarded stones and abandoned plantings, so it turns up on hedge banks, railway embankments, scrub and the margins of old orchards. Commonest in lowland Britain and Ireland on deep, moist soil with shelter from late frosts.
The ripe flesh is eaten raw or cooked. Kernels contain amygdalin and release cyanide if chewed or crushed, so do not eat them and do not leave split stones in long-steeped spirits. Unripe fruit is laxative in any quantity. Ripe fruit draws wasps, and trees on verges or old orchard ground may carry traffic or spray residue.
Always use more than one reference to confirm a plant. You are responsible for what you choose to forage.
Fruit shape and bloom
Oval to oblong rather than round, tapering slightly at both ends, dark blue to purple-black under a dense pale bloom that rubs off to a glossy skin. Round, red, yellow or green fruit on an otherwise similar tree points to a dessert plum or gage instead.
Stone and flesh
Cut across the fruit and the flattened, pointed stone separates cleanly from firm greenish-gold flesh. Flesh that clings tightly to the stone and floods with juice indicates one of the clingstone dessert plums, not a prune type.
Twigs and thorns
Twigs are greyish-brown, more or less hairless and unarmed. Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), which also carries small blue-black bloomed fruit, has stiff side shoots ending in sharp spines.
Leaves
Dull matt green, obovate to elliptical, finely toothed and softly downy on the underside. Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) has thinner, brighter, near-glossy leaves that flush earlier in the year.
Blossom timing
White flowers in ones to threes open in April, with or just after the first leaves. Blackthorn flowers on bare wood in March, so a tree in full blossom with no leaves at all is unlikely to be this.
Updated 2026-08-08T11:13:21.047Z · Part of the shared Foragers Log catalogue · Fruit