Garden and orchard · Prunus domestica (Mirabellen / mirabelle plums)
Mirabelles: little yellow plums
Little yellow suns on a branch? Puschel and Flauschi discover mirabelle plums and compare them with elongated prune plums.
The short answer
Mirabelles are small round plums with yellow-to-golden skin and one stone inside. Some varieties develop red spots. Colour alone cannot safely identify unknown fruits.
An imagined Wusel scene
Puschel and Flauschi investigate
Puschel kneels beside Flauschi on the path. Puschel“Little suns are hanging from this branch!” He holds his paw nearby without picking a fruit.
Flauschi studies the round yellow fruits. Flauschi“These are mirabelles on our known garden tree. Like prune plums, they are plums too, but usually rounder and more yellow.”
Puschel“So yellow is only a clue, not permission to eat,” Puschel says. Flauschi nods. They leave the little fruits growing; adults will help wash them and remove the stones later.
The fruit
Like prune plums, mirabelles belong to Prunus domestica. They are small rounded stone fruits with yellow to golden-yellow skin and a single stone.
Leaf and plant
Mirabelles grow on trees with oval, toothed leaves. Some varieties, such as Mirabelle de Nancy, develop reddish dots on their skins when fully ripe.
What makes it special
Ripe mirabelles have sweet, juicy flesh. Yellow colour alone does not prove a variety or show that an unknown fruit is edible.
Try explaining it
What lies inside a mirabelle?
Choose a), b) or c), then explain your choice.
- a)Many tiny fruits on the skin.
- b)One hard stone.
- c)A core with many apple seeds.
Show the explanation
Correct: b): One hard stone.
Mirabelles are small round plums with yellow-to-golden skin and one stone inside. Some varieties develop red spots. Colour alone cannot safely identify unknown fruits.
Explore in more detail
Here you will find longer explanations and further details. You can explore them together.
How can yellow and purple fruits be related?
Mirabelles and prune plums are forms of European plum. Colour, shape and size can vary within a species. People select and propagate particular forms called cultivated varieties. A yellow mirabelle is therefore not simply an unripe purple prune plum.
Compare and understand
Both are stone fruits with a seed inside a hard stone. Compare known fruits opened by adults: which features do they share, and which differ? Yellow colour alone cannot safely identify an unknown tree. Remove stones; they are not seeds for snacking.
An optional question for further exploration
You can use the longer explanation above. This is extra, not needed for the first quiz.
An extra question
Do mirabelles have several small seeds like a quince, or a single stone?
Show answer
They have a single stone. Mirabelles are stone fruits; quinces are pome fruits with several seeds.
Are little reddish dots on a ripe mirabelle always a sign of spoilage?
Show answer
No. In some varieties, these dots are part of the normal skin colour. Adults check whether a known fruit is sound and edible; dots alone do not decide that.