Prunus simonii Seeds | Simon Plum

Simon Plum (Prunus simonii) with its small white spring flowers and firm dark-red plums hanging along the branches — Simon Plum (*Prunus simonii*): Rosaceae, an apricot-flavoured plum of northern China with firm, non-ripening flesh.

LATIN NAME: Prunus simonii

COMMON NAME: Simon Plum

Plant Profile

Simon Plum is a small, rounded tree of the rose family from northern China, growing four to six metres tall with oval, toothed leaves and small white flowers that open in early spring before the leaves. The fruit follows in late summer: round, dark-red to purple plums with firm, yellow flesh and a distinctive apricot flavour, hanging thickly along the branches.

The flesh stays firm even when ripe, a trait that defines the species and shaped its use in breeding. It likes sun and deep, moist, well-drained soil, and it stands cold winters well, though it flowers early enough to meet late frost in some districts. The leaves are larger and glossier than those of most plums, and the tree holds its fruit firmly on the branch long after ripening, an unusual trait in the genus.

Science & Biotechnology

The species has featured in stone-fruit breeding for its firm flesh and flavour, and it is a parent of several twentieth-century plum hybrids; its apricot character comes through in the progeny, a documented trait in Prunus breeding records.

Seed does not come true: the cultivated fruit is the product of grafted selections, and seedlings vary widely. Botanists include the species in comparative studies of the stone fruits, where its non-melting flesh is a standard contrast with European plums. Studies of the species’ flesh firmness trace the trait to cell-wall chemistry distinct from the melting-flesh European plums, and the trait’s inheritance in hybrids has been documented across generations of breeding work. The species was introduced to France in the 1860s and became a commercial curiosity there, its firm-fleshed fruit earning it a place in early plum-breeding programmes across Europe.

Uses & Benefits

The fruit serves fresh eating, preserves and baking, and its firm texture means it travels and keeps better than most plums, which made it a market favourite in France after its nineteenth-century introduction.

In the garden it is a small, early-flowering tree: white spring blossom for the bees, fruit for the late-summer kitchen, and a tidy shape that fits a small plot. Seed-raised trees are a lottery, but a worthwhile one for the patient. The firm flesh suits it to bottling and to spiced pickled plums, uses the European trade found for it in the nineteenth century and home preservers still value. Fruit from seedlings varies from apricot-sweet to merely pleasant, and tasting the first crop before deciding which trees to keep is part of the pleasure of raising it.

Growing from Seed

Sow the stones in autumn into a loose seed compost or stratify them in damp sand over winter, since the hard endocarp needs a cold, moist spell before the seed will move.

Grow the seedlings on in full sun, pot them on yearly, and plant out into deep, well-drained soil. Expect variable fruit from seedlings; the best of them can be worth grafting, the rest still make fair flowering trees. Thin the fruit in heavy-cropping years, since the branches hang with plums densely enough to break under their load in an unreduced season. A south-facing wall improves ripening in marginal climates and shelters the early blossom from the worst spring winds, both worth the space in a small garden.

Our Take

An apricot-flavoured plum with firm flesh and a nineteenth-century pedigree. Stratify the stones, raise a row, and graft the best; the rest of the tree repays you in blossom.

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