clark:

Many years ago while working for a bare-root nursery in
Minnesota, we grew Princepia sinensis. It has thorns!

My understanding is that is available in Canada as quite winter hardy. I see U of MN still has a nice info sheet on the web about this plant.

Trying to sell this plant 25 years ago was futile due to lack of interest so the nursery I was working at abandoned production on this. Not sure of anyone still growing it.

For some reason it was a slow grower. Not like Prunus at
all in its growth rate.

Thanks spartan-apple that's great information. How is the fruit? HHwildplum carried the bush the last I knew.

This post was edited by ClarkinKS on Fri, Sep 19, 14 at 4:13

Clark:

Sorry I cannot comment on the fruit as these were sold as small bare-root plants. I never got to taste the fruit as those
in the field were harvested while still too young to bear.

Sharp thorns were the issue I highly remember.

I ordered a flat of them as a test crop and will let you know how they taste. I'm surprised few people are growing these.