Fruit late, season long; one and one-eighth inches by seven-eighths inch in size, oval, slightly necked, black, with thick bloom; flesh greenish-yellow, juicy, firm, sprightly, becoming sweet late in the season; of good quality; stone clinging, five-eighths inch by three-eighths inch in size, irregular-ovate, slightly necked. KIRKE _Prunus domestica_ =1.= _Pom. Mag._ =3=:111, Pl. 1830. =2.= _Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat._ 149. 1831. =3.= Kenrick _Am. Orch._ 263. 1832. =4.= Downing _Fr. Trees Am._ 306. 1845. =5.= Floy-Lindley _Guide Orch. Gard._ 281, 382. 1846. =6.= _Mag. Hort._ =15=:488 fig. 43. 1849. =7.= Thompson _Gard. Ass’t_ 518, Pl. 1. 1859. =8.= Mas _Le Verger_ =6=:15, fig. 8. 1866-73. =9.= _Am. Pom. Soc. Cat._ 36. 1875. =10.= _Pom. France_ =7=: No. 26. 1871. =11.= _Flor. & Pom._ 47. 1876. =12.= Oberdieck _Deut. Obst. Sort._ 430. 1881. =13.= Lauche _Deut. Pom._ 16, Pl. IV. 1882. =14.= Hogg _Fruit Man._ 708. 1884. =15.= _Guide Prat._ 154, 358. 1895. =16.= _Gard. Chron._ =24=:19. 1898. =17.= Gaucher _Pom. Prak. Obst._ No. 96, Col. Pl. 1894. =18.= _Rev. Hort._ 500. 1898. =19.= _Soc. Nat. Hort. France Pom._ 536. 1904. _De Kirke_ 15. Kirke’s 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 17. _Kirke’s_ 8, 10, 15, 17. Kirke’s Pflaume 12, 13. _Kirke’s Pflaume_ 8, 10, 15, 17. Kirke’s Plum 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 16, 18. Kirk’s Plum 3, 5. _Kirke_ 17. _Kirke’s Plum_ 15, 17, 19. Prune de Kirke 18. _Prune de Kirke_ 8, 10, 17. _Prune Kirke_ 19. All English descriptions of this variety rank it very high both as a dessert and a culinary plum. The variety stands well among the purple plums growing on the grounds of this Station, but since it has been grown in America eighty years, attaining a reputation only of being mediocre in most characters, it is probably not worth planting largely. It has many more worthy competitors in its class and season. Hogg, in the reference given, says the variety was introduced by Joseph Kirke, a nurseryman at Brompton, near London, who, he says, “told me he first saw it on a fruit stall near the Royal Exchange, and that he afterwards found the trees producing the fruit were in Norfolk, whence he obtained grafts and propagated it. But its true origin was in the grounds of Mr. Poupart, a market gardener at Brompton, on the spot now occupied by the lower end of Queen’s Gate and where it sprung up as a sucker from a tree which had been planted to screen an outbuilding. It was given to Mr. Kirke to be propagated and he sold it under the name it now bears.” The variety was introduced into America between 1830 and 1840. The American Pomological Society placed Kirke upon its list of rejected fruits in 1858, added it to the recommended list in 1875, and displaced it in 1899.