Prunus is prolific also in ornamental plants, having in common to recommend them, rapidity of growth, ease of culture, comparative freedom from pests, and great adaptability to soils and climates. The plants of this genus are valued as ornamentals both for their flowers and for their foliage. Many cultivated forms of several of the species have single or double flowers, or variegated, colored or otherwise abnormal leaves, while the genus is enlivened by the evergreen foliage of the cherry laurels. Nearly all of the plants of Prunus are spring-flowering but most of them are attractive later on in the foliage and many of them are very ornamental in fruit. PLUMS. Of all the stone-fruits plums furnish the greatest diversity of kinds. Varieties to the number of two thousand, from fifteen species, are now or have been under cultivation. These varieties give a greater range of flavor, aroma, texture, color, form and size, the qualities which gratify the senses and make fruits desirable, than any other of our orchard fruits. The trees, too, are diverse in structure, some of the plums being shrub-like plants with slender branches, while others are true trees with stout trunks and sturdy branches; some species have thin, delicate leaves and others coarse, heavy foliage. In geographical distribution both the wild and the cultivated plum encircle the globe in the North Temperate Zone, and the cultivated varieties are common inhabitants of the southern temperate region, the various plums being adapted to great differences in temperature, moisture and soil in the two zones. The great variety of plums and the variability of the kinds, seemingly plastic in all characters, the general distribution of the fruit throughout the zone in which is carried on the greatest part of the world’s agriculture, and the adaptation of the several species and the many varieties, to topographical, soil and climatic changes, make this fruit not only one of much present importance but also one of great capacity for further development. Of the plums of the Old World the Domesticas, Insititias and probably the Trifloras have been cultivated for two thousand years or more, while the work of domesticating the wild species of America was only begun in the middle of the last century. There are about fifteen hundred varieties of the Old World plums listed in this work, and since the New World plums are quite as variable, as great a variety or greater, since there are more species, may be expected in America.