Chap. X. 



PEACH AND NECTARINE. 



357 



The second remarkable fact is, that two supposed hybrids 19 

 (for their hybrid nature was not ascertained), between an orange 

 and either a lemon or citron, produced on the same tree leaves, 

 flowers, and fruit of both pure parent-forms, as well as of a mixed 

 or crossed nature. A bud taken from any one of the branches and 

 grafted on another tree produces either one of the pure kinds or a 

 capricious tree reproducing the three kinds. Whether the sweet 

 lemon, which includes within the same fruit segments of differently 

 flavoured pulp, 20 is an analogous case, I know not. But to this 

 subject 1 shall have to recur. 



I will conclude by giving from A. Kisso 21 a short account of a 

 very singular variety of the common orange. It is the " cit/tts 

 aurantium fructu variabili" which on the young shoots produces 

 rounded-oval leaves spotted with yellow, borne on petioles with 

 heart-shaped wings ; when these leaves fall off, they are succeeded 

 by longer and narrower leaves, with undulated margins, of a pale- 

 green colour embroidered with yellow, borne on footstalks without 

 wings. The fruit whilst young is pear-shaped, yellow, longitu- 

 dinally striated, and sweet; but as it ripens, it becomes spherical, 

 of a reddish-yellow, and bitter. 



Peach and Nectarine (Amygdalus persica). The best authorities 

 are nearly unanimous that the peach has never been found wild. 

 It was introduced from Persia into Europe a little before the 

 Christian era, and at this period few varieties existed. Alph. De 

 Canclolle/ 2 from the fact of the peach not having spread from Persia 

 at an earlier period, and from its not having pure Sanscrit or 

 Hebrew names, believes that it is not an aboriginal of Western 

 Asia, but came from the terra incognita of China. The supposition, 

 however, that the peach is a modified almond which acquired its 

 present character at a comparatively late period, would, I presume, 

 account for these facts ; on the same principle that the nectarine, the 

 offspring of the peach, has few native names, and became known in 

 Europe at a still later period. 



Andrew Knight, 23 from finding that a seedling-tree, raised from a 

 sweet almond fertilised by the pollen of a peach, yielded fruit quite 

 like that of a peach, suspected that the peach-tree is a modified 

 almond ; and in this he has been followed by various authors. 24 A 

 first-rate peach, almost globular in shape, formed of soft and sweet 



19 Gallesio, 'Teoria della Ripro- 

 duzione,' pp. 75, 76. 



20 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 1841, p. 

 618. 



21 ' Annales du Museum,' torn. xx. 

 p. 188. 



22 ' Geograph. Bot.,' p. 882. 



23 ' Transactions of Hort. Soc.,' vol. 

 iii. p. 1, and vol. iv. p. 396, and note 

 to p. 370. A coloured drawing is 

 given of this hybrid. 



24 ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1856, p. 

 532. A writer, it may be presumed 

 Dr. Liudley, remarks on the perfect 

 series which may be formed between 

 the almond and the peach. Another 

 high authority, Mr. Rivers, who has 

 had such wide experience, strongly 

 suspects (' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1863, 

 p. 27) that peaches, if left to a state 

 of nature, would in the course of time 

 retrograde into thick-fleshed almonds. 



