



T 



1586 



AMYGDALUS* Persica; alba. 



The White Peach. 



ICOSANDRIA MONOGYNJA 



Nat. ord. Amygdaleje Juss. (Introduction to the natural system oj 

 Botany, p. 84.) 



AMYGDALUS.— Suprd, vol. U.fol. 1160. 



* - 



Garden Variety. 



The White Peach is one of those curious variations from 

 the natural state of a species, the origin of which is as little 

 known as the cause that may have produced it. One would 

 scarcely have expected that a plant, which, like the Peach, 

 in its ordinary state is quite remarkable for the rich rose or 

 purple colour not only of its fruit, but of its flowers and 

 even of its branches and leaf-stalks, would ever acquire a 

 tendency to lose its brilliant tints, and to assume the pallid 

 hue of sickness ; unless, at the same time, it became un- 



.j . This variety, however, and the White Nectarine, 

 . of which are perfectly healthy, and not less hardy 

 than the coloured kinds, shews that the loss of 



plants is not always 



of disease, but may 



arise from some constitutional peculiarity by no means 

 incompatible with health. 



It is now well known that whiteness in vegetation is 

 very different from absence of colour ; and that while the 

 latter is caused by the total want of the colouring-matter, 

 or chromule of plants, the former is caused by the chromule 

 being of some exceedingly pale tint; for as M. Ue Can- 

 dolle has justly remarked, if an apparently white flower is 

 placed before a perfectly white sheet ot paper, it will 

 always be found to exhibit some tint of yellow, or pink, 





* Seefol. 1160 



