Anybody can tell me how they taste?

H'man: These are extraordinarily sweet, well beyond that of almost any other fruit. Their tartness (not astringency) comes from their skin and only their skin. I've seen them described as astringent also and it couldn't be more inaccurate unless my understanding of the term "astringency" is incorrect. To me American Persimmon is astringent when not dead ripe. I usually always see them described as being 1 - 1 1/2" in diameter also. Almost all of mine are bigger than that.
This tree was purchased from Arbor Day Foundation about 4 or 5 years ago, so I guess it is possible they are not true to type. ADF sells nothing else though that could be mistaken for these. Also, I've see photos of them in Europe that are identical to these.
There is another wild plum in the UK primarily that I cannot think of the name right now. I think it is these plums that often get their desciptions etc mixed up with Damson. I wish I could remember what they call them. The name I remember is even used in a common turn of phrase.

I wish I had that optical tool for measuring brix. I bet these would rock the charts. My Dad thinks they're too sweet, but he's a bit goofy.

Your fruit looks like the Santa Rosa picture on DWN below. The dots aren't sugar speckling I don't think. More like lenticels. But SR can be very sweet and is usually tart at skin.

It does look like santa rosa on the outside, but way off in flesh color. I should add that this was the first uear to develop such a roundish shape, prior to that the were more ovular like Damson, and still the smaller plums are that shape.

Me is starting to think maybe ADF got it right after all.

Its hybrid parentage is believed to be Prunus spinosa and Prunus cerasifera.[2] This is the most commonly grown plum at least in Europe, and most prunes (dried plums) are made from fruits of this species.

Characteristics[edit]

Typically it forms a large shrub or a small tree. It may be somewhat thorny, with white blossom, borne in early spring. The oval or spherical fruit varies in size, but can be up to 8 cm across, and is usually sweet (dessert plum), though some varieties are sour and require cooking with sugar to make them palatable. Like all Prunus fruits, it contains a single large seed, usually called a stone, which is discarded when eating.[3]

Plums are grown commercially in orchards, but modern rootstocks, together with self-fertile strains, training and pruning methods, allow single plums to be grown in relatively small spaces. Their early flowering and fruiting means that they require a sheltered spot away from frosts and cold winds.[3]

For a full discussion of the fruit, see under the main article Plum
The subspecies cross easily, so that numerous intermediate forms can be found: their sweetness and tartness may vary, their colors varying from bluish purple, to red, orange, yellow or light green.

Subspecies[edit]

Greengages

Mirabelle plum

The European Garden Flora recognises three subspecies, though scientific studies favor a more fine-grained separation:

P. domestica ssp. domestica ��" common plums, zwetschge (including ssp. oeconomica)
P. domestica ssp. insititia ��" damsons and bullaces, krieche, kroosjes, perdrigon and other European varieties
P. domestica ssp. intermedia ��" egg plums (including Victoria plum)
P. domestica ssp. italica ��" gages (greengages, round plums etc.; including sspp. claudiana and rotunda)
P. domestica ssp. pomariorum ��" spilling
P. domestica ssp. prisca ��" zibarte
P. domestica ssp. syriaca ��" mirabelle plums

Looks to me like a dead-ringer for prunus domestica insititia.. Maynard Damson has precisely the looks of this plum.

Fruitnut: I think ADF got it right. It seems there is high variability in Damsons and perhaps the tarter more astringent ones were selected out for their culinary attributes. This just happens to be the very sweet more rounded variant. I'm all but certain it is not Asian for a whole host of reasons ranging from the pollination question to the fact that I've never seen an Asian plum exhibiting the bluish dusty hue as is present on this plum. At least to a novice like me this plum is Very European in looks.

It just seems to me I remember reading that Damson's were almost kinda like their own species. That's been a long time ago, I might be remembering that wrong.

There are a number of Japanese-American plums with red skin and red flesh. JA plums are notorious for their bitter skins. The one in your pictures look like the Satuma plums that came off my tree.

E plums (Domestica means European because that was home for the original classifiers) turn from green flesh to amber if they stick on the tree (Stanleys drop off before they get what I consider ripe) and they are more syrupy, instead of being like water balloons as are Japanese plums-except the water is highly sugared.

I know of no red-fleshed E. plum.

You can't reliably identify fruit from pictures and keys unless you are expert at it, and even then it is dicey.

Santa Rosa is a wonderful plum when tree ripened and completely fits your description. It is a world class fruit.

I grow Damson and have gotten the trees from two different sources that supply commercial growers, they are an extremely distinct plum in their appearance. Fully fruited they are the most beautiful sight imaginable with branches just strung with their small fruit (I don't thin them). It is such a stunning shade of purple that I'm sure any designer would have the accurate word for. It is a bluish purple.

ny rockfarmer: the photo was from a website about Japanese hybrids, but the photo was showing the comparison between the Japanese plum (prunus salicina) and prunus domestica...if you look you'll see the caption right there. Save the photo and it will be in the file name.

I did however see plum flesh photos of Japanese varieties whose flesh was similar though. Problem is..nothing else fits.
I think in all likelihood it is prusus domestica institia. This group includes the various forms of Damson of which this tree was labled and of which there are both flesh photos, skin photos, tree photos, multiple descriptions and characteristics description that fit AND support it's labeling.

Do I think it's possible it's labled wrong? Sure
Do I think it's likely? No I think there is enough evidence to support it's being a Damson variant, possibly Maynard or something similar.

Euro plums are much harder to grow as you get further south and below Jersey most are Japanese types.

I have almost 50 years experience growing Japanese plums but only started cultivating E's when I started my business in NY almost 25 years ago.

Wikipedia is a pretty good source for many areas of information but it is not the domain of fruit knowledge.

Agree,..good indicator!

Doesn't look like EURO or Damson

One thing though: did you or rockfarmer read this?

The subspecies cross easily, so that numerous intermediate forms can be found: their sweetness and tartness may vary, their colors varying from bluish purple, to red, orange, yellow or light green.

The greengages and damsons also belong to subspecies of P. domestica

Typically it forms a large shrub or a small tree. It may be somewhat thorny, with white blossom, borne in early spring. The oval or spherical fruit varies in size, but can be up to 8 cm across, and is usually sweet (dessert plum), though some varieties are sour and require cooking with sugar to make them palatable

The above alone is plenty of evidence to me that in order to be Damson's, they do not have to look just like the Damson plums you purchased from two different sources. It clearly states there is high variability among them.
Whoever supplied this info to Wikipedia clearly knew what they were talking about, there is simply too much scientific detail and well organized writing for this to be a contribution from some schmuck.
If you had a black Labrador H'man and I a chocolate Lab, would that then mean my dog was in fact, not a Labrador? Since it doesn't look like your's?

Someone asked "Why do you believe the source?" My reply would be why do you disbelieve it?

At any rate, H'man says it's a Santa Rosa, rockfarmer a Satsuma. In either case it's a Japanese plum..so, I digress.

As harvestman said, the ripen date is another clue. For your area, I don't think Satsuma would be ripe until another week or two anyhow.

These are grafted trees we are talking about, not seedlings. The vast, vast majority of Damson's being propagated in this country are clones of a single tree- large nurseries are restricted in their source of material to assure virus free material, for one thing. Also, in commercial fruit production, there is a strong desire for certain uniformity in a specific variety, although apples often have numerous mutations patented of the same variety- usually in pursuit of more "attractive" or highly colored appearance.

Mislabeled trees, especially coming from a second party source, are extremely common. I've often received such trees, even from highly respected and reputable nurseries.

There are many varieties of gage plums and all I've seen have green flesh that turns to amber when fully ripe. Same thing for every prune plum I've ever seen. I've only experience with the Damson sold by commercial nurseries in the U.S,. but I very strongly doubt you can find a description of one in reliable literature that mentions red flesh. This is a quality I've only seen in J. plums such as Methely, Satsuma, Queen Rosa and Elephant Heart.

Santa Rosa, as grown here, has more a rosey colored flesh, and is a bit streaky but more amber than red.

I agree that the pictures do look more like Methely, but they are about done here and I expected you'd be a bit ahead of me in MD. Santa Rosa's are beginning to ripen now. It is also a higher quality plum by most tastes than Methely, but a tree ripened plum is a tree ripened plum.

Methely can be better (subjectively speaking) when it is not fully ripe because it almost becomes bland when left on the tree to the point of being soft and fully colored. The flesh actually turns red before the skin.

My grandparents claimed the huge maple in the back yard was Sugar Maple they bought and planted themselves. After I started making maple syrup and became familiar with maples, I looked at their tree and quickly identified it as NOT a Sugar Maple. It was just a common red-silver hybrid, which are one of the most common trees in the NE USA. They insisted they bought a Sugar Maple, which would have been more valuable for its hardwood (someday).

My father told me one of the apple trees on their property is Macintosh he bought and planted. When I got older and became more aware of apple varieties, I pointed out that the apple from that tree is nothing like a Mac. To this day he refers to that tree as a Mac. I don't know if he is in denial or trying to make me laugh.

An example would be the statement that there are many Damson types. There may be throughout the world but that doesn't mean that there are a lot of strains or types available in America. If you had a lot of experience ordering trees from a range of nurseries this fact might have occurred to you but it's not the type of thing you will find in Wikipedia.

I completely got what you were saying about the single Damson variety. Plums are something I've actually read very little about anyway. A few bad peach trees put a bad taste in my mouth concerning stone fruit a long time ago.

rayrose: the pics I posted were indeed Methleys...I made certain of it and that they weren't just somebody "borrowing" a pic from Google images for an article and using the wrong pic.
My own Methley here never had that bright red flesh until this year. Seriously, it was almost completely amber with the very slightest hint of pink. As H'man said, the red color I guess develops in good years. These plums were always good, but this year "over the moon"!!
I've heard folks on here say (don't remember who, may even have been you...I dunno) that Methley was garbage. I'm no stone fruit connoisseur but have eaten a ton of store bought and never had a plum anywhere close to this sweet, juicy and just awesome.
I ordered Methley at the same time as the Damson rayrose, and that coupled with all the other data, photos etc leads one to the most logical conclusion. In all likelihood it is a Methley.
(jokingly) Of course less than 24 hrs. ago I was defending it's position as a strain of Damson...so what the Hell do I know...lol?

My previous Santa Rosa was too long ago to remember and an equally small sample before borers got the trees.

It's a 100+ tree orchard for one 4-person family. A lot of fruit goes to waste (or deer) unless I can line up a volunteer to pick and deliver to a food pantry.

I'm interested of the plum scion woods offer from this post. I planted a Burgundy Plum this spring with a few branches that I can take scions before next spring if you're interested.