Aprimira is a new hybrid mirabelle - apricot. The fruits are very sweet, and relatively large by the standards of mirabelles - more like small apricots in size. However in most other respects the mirabelle side of the partnership is more prominent, and Aprimira is best considered as a large pink / yellow-flushed mirabelle.
The blossom is plain white, and appears at about the same time as the leaves.
The fruits ripen gradually in early to mid-August, at about the same time as Victoria plums, and can be picked fresh from the tree over an extended period. The fruits will also keep fresh in a fridge for about a week - longer than most dessert plums.
The flavour is especially sweet and the stone falls away cleanly from the flesh.
Deliveries now finished
Aprimira is self-fertile, and flowers very early in the spring, making it a useful pollinator for other very early flowering plum species, including pluots, cherry plums and other mirabelles.
Aprimira was developed at the Geisenheim research station in Germany from a Mirabelle von Herrenhausen, and released in 1994.
Mirabelles and apricots are closely related members of the Prunus family, and many of these varieties will naturally cross-pollinate each other so there is great scope for interesting hybrids.