Prune
A prune is a dried plum of any cultivar, mostly Prunus domestica or European Plum. The use of the term for fresh fruit is obsolete except when applied to varieties grown for drying.
Most dried prunes are freestone cultivars (the pit is easy to remove), whereas most other plums grown for fresh consumption are clingstone (the pit is more difficult to remove).
Production
More than 1,000 plum cultivars are grown for drying. The main cultivar grown in the United States is the Improved French prune. Other varieties include Sutter, Tulare Giant, Moyer, Imperial, Italian, and Greengage. Fresh prunes reach the market earlier than fresh plums and are usually smaller in size.
Name
The Frederick Post of Frederick, Maryland, US reported on 2 February 2001 that plum growers had been authorised by the government to call prunes "dried plums". Due to the popular U.S. perception of prunes being used only for relief of constipation, and being the subject of related joking, many distributors stopped using the word "prune" on packaging labels in favour of "dried plums".
