By Britt Coker
This article originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of the TreeCropper magazine. If you enjoy this article, consider joining us to receive our quarterly TreeCropper publication as well as more members’ only content.
Space in my suburban section is at a premium. Pragmatism has forced me into a one-out, one-in policy, so a recent kowhai wind fall came with a silver lining, as its demise was followed by a well-timed email from our local branch advertising a fruit tree sale. Unusually, I didn’t spend any time labouring over which one to choose. I’m not sure if I trust more in the universe these days, or I’m just tired of making minor decisions. The intuitive’s dart landed on a greengage, Reine Claude de Bavay. Then a fortnight after planting my de Bavay, the same universe delivered my copy of the Fruit Gardener magazine (produced by the California Rare Fruit Growers), containing a lengthy article on the greengage.
Reine Claude Doree
The original greengage is the Reine Claude Doree. Its flavour is to die-for, according to French growers. The flesh is described as dense, golden-yellow and juicy with a syrupy, sweet and honey-like taste that is balanced with a pleasant tartness. It is considered a dessert plum.
The Doree being so highly revered naturally led to its prolific propagation (from root cuttings) and over the centuries many clones arose. In addition, dozens of new seedling varieties grew from the pits – many larger, more reliable in cropping and different in season from the original, but none superior in flavour. My de Bavay, I was relieved to discover, is considered a close relative and pretty good second choice.
The Doree is a natural hybrid of the European plum Prunus domestica and P. insititia, a species that includes certain small, fruited plums such as damsons and mirabelles. Pomologists have surmised that the earliest greengage-like plums originated in Armenia or the Caucasus and later spread to Greece and Italy. Brought from Italy to France during the reign of King Francois I (b.1494, d.1547), the Doree was named in honour of his queen, Claude. So when we say it is the original plum, it was clearly one of just many before it, but its superior flavour elevated its status and name to royalty.
Despite its stand-out flavour, Reine Claude Doree horticulturists may have taken to propagating progeny to breed out Doree’s growing imperfections. Those being – Doree greengages are self-sterile, requiring the presence of other compatible varieties to bear fruit. It is purported to take seven years to fruit, they crop erratically (biennial), the small, delicate fruits are expensive to pick and when it rains, they crack and rot.
Not all gages are green (doree in French means ‘golden’), and some horticulturists make a distinction between the two words, with green gages as a variety of the gages, Prunus domestica subspecies var. claudiana.
Brought to England by the early 17th century, the Reine Claude Doree was renamed for Sir William Gage of Suffolk, whose gardener imported a tree from Paris in the 1720s but lost the label. So as a direct result of this, the original Doree plum became known as ‘old greengage’ and its progeny became known as gages, e.g., Cambridge gage. Not surprisingly, those later varieties are sometimes sold as the original (both the tree and the fruit).
Since New Zealand was colonised by the British, the ‘old greengage’ came with us, though here we call it English greengage. In modern USA tree nurseries, it appears to have more successfully preserved [or had reinstated] its French name.
As mentioned, the Doree is temperamental for a commercial variety, so its superior flavour is likely the only reason why it is still in existence. In Moissac, France, orchardists grow 75% of the country’s gages. Moissac is thought to have been the original site of gage plums. The region is an ideal spot because in Moissac they enjoy hot summers to sweeten the greengage, but also cool nights which help the fruit hang on the tree and develop their flavour. Growers say the chalky clay soil on the hillsides produce the best greengages.
Once the plums are ready for harvest, they are shipped to markets, where vendors display the fruits with certificates as a mark of quality to show that the plums were grown in Moissac.
French greengage growers have updated their techniques to boost production. They have selected high performing clones, put in irrigation and changed the shape of their trees from vase to central leader, hastening the onset of commercial production from seven years to five. The workers carefully pick the fruit by the stems to preserve the bloom – the natural waxy layer that seals moisture within the fruit. This is a tip worth remembering if you like to stare at your gages in your fruit bowl for a week before eating.
Since the original greengage plum Doree is self-sterile, French horticulturists recommend that 10 to 15% of the trees in a greengage orchard should be polliniser varieties. It is best to plant at least two such varieties since due to climatic variations, the varieties may not bloom at the same time each year in relation to the greengage. A greengage tree should not be more than 10 metres away from a polliniser (pollen is conveyed by insects, primarily bees and only very marginally by the wind).
If you have Doree greengage trees without adjacent pollinisers, you can remedy the situation by placing flowering branches of polliniser varieties among the greengage trees or graft over branches to polliniser varieties. Stanley, French prune and de Bavay are the best polliniser varieties, at least, under conditions prevailing in the French region. In New Zealand, Coe’s Golden Drop is recommended on several nursery websites.
As an aside, there are commercial growers in New Zealand who export small batches of greengages to the USA and China where they fetch premium prices. They are mostly grown near Central Otago.
Of the gage varieties for sale in New Zealand, I could find only three consistently sold at tree nurseries. There is the ‘English greengage’, presumably still the original Reine Claude Doree unless something has gone terribly wrong. It is recommended to have a Coe’s Golden Drop nearby for pollination purposes which might contribute to Coe’s Golden Drop being the second easiest gage variety to find for sale here. Orange Pippin says of Coe’s Golden Drop, “Coe stated that he raised it from a Green Gage pollinated by a White Magnum Bonum (a large culinary plum). Whilst Coe’s Golden Drop has the sweet rich gage-like flavour, it seems to benefit from being balanced somewhat by the acidic qualities of its other parent which prevent it becoming over-sweet.”
De Bavay
The third variety found in New Zealand, is of course, Reine Claude de Bavay. Of all the progeny, this is the half-sister most respected and widely grown in France (representing about one-third of total greengage and gage production back in 2004). It is much less precocious, by all accounts, and is described as a large, firm variety, self-fertile and high yielding. French growers insist that de Bavay doesn’t have quite the sweetness, balance and intensity of the Doree, but its flavour is close to that of the original and not being quite so tricksy, this will have endeared it to home orchardists short on patience and pollinisers.
De Bavay plums are distinct from their parent by being later ripening and having a slightly firmer texture, not to mention the improved cultivation characteristics (self-fertile, crops heavy, not prone to rain split, etc). The de Bavay was developed in Belgium in 1832 and in 1843, the plum was officially named after de Bavay, the Director of the Royal Nurseries horticultural station near Brussels. The variety was introduced to growers in England in 1846, and the fruits appeared in USA fruit order catalogues by 1856.
What’s somewhat ironic is that the Reine Claude de Bavay is a descendent of the Doree/Old Greengage but it is the de Bavay that has kept its reference to Queen Claude while in England, some lost label in the 17th Century meant the highly regarded Doree became the unimaginative, ‘old greengage’ (and here, ‘English greengage’). This feels like a bit of a travesty, but par for the unjust course in fruit tree identification circles.
I’ve christened my planted tree Queen Claude and will bow when walking by, for obvious reasons. Purely coincidentally, I planted her next to my Golden Queen peach, but hopefully Claude will perform better since the peach is an almost-ripe rotter and may be heading for the guillotine.
Wikipedia regretfully advised me that the real Queen Claude died young, at just 24 years old (a mother of seven children by this stage; I prefer to think she faked her own death). The naming of the greengage in her honour most likely happened in a nine-year window between January 1515 (becoming queen) and her death (July 1524). Either way, about 500 years ago. The queen was a brunette, so no golden locks for inspiration. Claude was also short, hunched, walked with a limp and had strabismus of one eye, but she was widely regarded for being very sweet. Like a dessert plum. So, despite all her irrelevant surface flaws, young Queen Claude had a heart of gold so inspiring a remarkable fruit tree was named in her honour, and is still coveted to this day. C’est magnifique!
Sources
David Karp, Fruit Gardener
orangepippin.com
