Prunus mume

Picture from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_mume.

There are hundreds of varieties of prunus mume. We would prefer the fruiting kind (for plum vinegar). According to a lady in the Vancouver Horticultural Society, the trees at VanDusen Botanical Garden is a variety that bears fruit, but I have not yet confirmed whether they are edible fruit.

Excerpt from Trees of Vancouver By Gerald Bane Straley

(UBC Press, 1992)

Prunus mume Siebold & Zucc.

Japanese Apricot or Winter Plum

This is a small, winter- or early spring-flowering, deciduous tree that is widely cultivated in Japan. It is only just beginning to be known in North America, although there are a few older trees in the city. The young twigs are slender, but stiff, and bright green. The fragrant flowers, which usually flower in March here, are variable in size and colour, ranging from white to intense dark reddish pink, and are either 5-petalled or very double, with many petals. It is perhaps the most beautiful of flowering fruit trees, but is rather nondescript the rest of the year. Most of the ornamental varieties produce dry, inedible fruits, but there are a few fruit-bearing cultivars.

There are very few in the city, Probably the best individual is on the sw corner of King Edward Ave and Hudson St, which has relatively small, single flowers of an intense, dark red-pink. There are now small plants from this tree at VanDusen Botanical Garden. A slightly paler, but still shocking pink, cultivar with larger, double flowers that open very flat is on the west side of Fir St between 13th Ave and 14th Ave. There are two specimens of a single white cultivar at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, and several cultivars in the Winter Garden in UBC Bontanical Garden.

Picture of the trees at VanDusen Botanical Garden:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/187627/

Close-up of one of the trees:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/187634/

A nursery that sold these trees in the past - maybe they'll have it again this year? There may be more sources of these trees in and around Vancouver:

http://artsnursery.com/readarticle.aspx?aid=82