Aprium
An aprium, a relatively recent phenomenon, is a biochemically and genetically engineered fruit that was produced in the late 1980s by Floyd Zaiger. Apriums are complex crosses of plums and apricots. These hybrids are created by hybridizing, requiring several generations of crosses to create a new fruit.
Comprised genetically of both a plum and an apricot, ⅓ to ⅔ respectively, the aprium, like the pluot (also called an I.S. plum or interspecific plum), is derived from another hybrid fruit called a plumcot.
Apriums look like an apricot on the outside. The color of the flesh is usually dense. Apriums are noted for their sweet taste (due in part to their vast content of fructose and other complex sugars) and flavorful mix of wonderful, aromatic apricots and plums. Incidentally, apriums are usually only available in the United States during the month of June, but the pluot can be seen in produce sections as far as into the fall season.
In spite of its complicated genetics, the aprium is becoming increasingly popular in American households due to the desire of more and more grocery stores to carry and stock the more rare and "hard to find" produce from many different parts of the world.
Aprium is a registered trademark of Zaiger's Genetics.
