My Favourite Window

January 22, 2011

Lady Mondegreen's Doubt

"Mm," she muses, feeling the flesh in her mouth, tasting the bitterness behind juicy sweetness. "No ordinary cherry plum," concludes Lady Mondegreen.  We found the sapling today amongst the grove shown in my 2 Sept 2010 posting (A Good Wall).  In truth I found it years ago, and as it is close to the Skudder house, have meant to clip it out, but my mother, like Lady Mondegreen would give every sprouting seed a chance to grow.  Eventually I have stopped seeing this sapling as others have grown around it, but today it stopped me in my tracks with its first ever fruit pendant against the day.  The only similarity to the neighbouring cherry plum fruit is size. The shape is conical with a deep cleft: I cannot help comparing it to a chicken heart!  The ripe skin is almost black with deep red clingstone flesh textured like a dessert plum. And as Lady Mondegreen noted there is the bitterness. Too much for my liking and not enough plum flavour, but I am prepared to give it time to prove itself. Another year may balance flavour differently.

Prunus x 'Lady Mondegreen's Doubt'

No comments: