The morphological variation in 104 local races of plum (Prunus domestica su
bsp. domestica L.) in the Nordic Gene Bank's Prunus clone archive in Palkan
e, Southwest Finland was examined. Each tree was described using 37 charact
eristics. On the basis of fruit characteristics the local races were classi
fied into three main groups. The largest one was the red plum group, the ye
llow plum group being the second largest. Victoria-type plums, which have n
ot been reported to occur in Finland before and which resemble the English
cultivar 'Victoria', make up the third group. Victoria-type plums proved to
be fully and red plums partly self-compatible, whilst the yellow plums wer
e self-incompatible. All the local races of plum were evaluated for their p
ossible further use. Two of them were selected for commercial propagation.