Seasonal Wild Flowers

Latin name

Prunus domestica subsp. insititia

Other names

Black Bullace

Family

Rosaceae

Flowering season

April to May

English distribution

It is found throughout the country

For a map see the BSBI online atlas for:

Bullace

Habitat

It is an archaeophyte in the UK probably brought by

the romans. It has been cultivated since the

10th Century and known in the wild since the 1770s.

It is naturalised in shrubland, woodland, in hedgerows,

alongside paths and roads and as a relic of cultivation.

Description

Bullace is a deciduous, shrub growing up to 6m.

Flowers are white and up to 2cm across. They have 5 oval

petals, around 20 stamens and a single ovule.

Stamens have white filaments and yellow/orange stamens.

The style is pale green and the stigma pale and capitate.

The fruit is a black, globular, drupe roughly 2cm diameter.

They are bigger than sloes and with less bloom.

The calyx has 5 green sepals and there is short stalk.

The lanceolate/oval leaves appaer at the same time as

The branches and twigs are grey to black and crisscross

to form dense thickets..

Bullaces are subspecies of P. domestica (Wild plum). Other 

subspecies include damsons and greengages,