Plant · P-402

Beach Plum

Prunus maritima

Beach Plum is a low, suckering shrub of Atlantic coastal dunes, its roots holding shifting sand together as it spreads into colonies. Where its native cool, foggy, salt-sprayed summers are matched, it produces a small sub-acid to sweet fruit eaten raw, cooked into preserves and jelly, or dried, and its flowers carry special value to native bees. Move it inland and away from that maritime summer and it tends to keep living, flowering and just never finish a crop - a slower disappointment than an outright failure, since it occupies the ground for years first.