Wu Mei

Prunus mume (Siebold) Siebold and Zucc. (Rosaceae), commonly called Chinese plum or Japanese apricot, is a small deciduous tree native to southern China and now widely cultivated in East Asia, reaching 4 to 10 meters tall with a rounded crown, gray-green smooth young bark, and slender, often green twigs. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic with a tapering tip, 4 to 10 cm long, with finely serrate margins, appearing after the flowers. The fragrant flowers are borne singly or in pairs on bare wood in late winter to early spring, 2 to 2.5 cm across, with five rounded petals in white, pink or red and many stamens, the calyx tube reddish. The fruit is a globose drupe 2 to 3 cm in diameter, yellow to greenish-yellow with a slight reddish blush, downy, with a sour, fragrant flesh and a single furrowed stone. Nearly ripe fruits picked in early summer are smoked over straw or roasted until black and wrinkled to produce Wu Mei.