THE I'EACHES OF NEW YORK 



199 



either fruit- or tree-characters, being surpassed in both by many of its 

 offspring, except, possibly, in quality. The flavor is delicious, being finely 

 balanced between sweetness and soiimess, with sweet predominating, and 

 with a most distinct, curious and pleasant taste of the almond. The fruits 

 are too tender for shipment and very subject to brown-rot. The trees 

 are weak-growers, shy-bearers, tender to cold and susceptible to leaf-curl. 

 Chinese Cling created a sensation in pomology when it was brought to 

 America because it was very different from any other peach then here 

 and was superior to any other in several characters. Its seedlings quickly 

 came into prominence with the result that possibly a hundred or more 

 of the varieties named in The Peaches of New York have descended from 

 it. The attempt to hold it and its seedlings in a distinct group fails, as 

 we have tried to show in discussing groups of peaches, because through 

 hybridization they are hopelessly confused with other stocks. The color- 

 plate is an excellent illustration of Chinese Cling. 



Chinese Cling was found growing in the orchards south of the city 

 of Shanghai, China, by Robert Fortune, the indefatigable English botanist, 

 who was sent to China by the London Horticultural Society to collect 

 useful and ornamental plants. Fortune sent the peach to England in 

 1844 under the name Shanghai, a name which it retains, with variable 

 . spellings, in Europe. Chinese Cling was imported as potted plants to 

 America in 1850 by Charles Downing through a Mr. Winchester, British 

 consul at Shanghai, China. Downing forwarded one of the trees to Henry 

 Lyons, Laurel Park, Columbia, South Carolina, with whom the variety 

 first fruited in America. Lyons called the new fruit " Chinese Peach." 

 In 1 87 1 the American Pomological Society placed Chinese Cling on its 

 recommended list of varieties, a place it still holds. 



Tree rather weak in growth, upright-spreading, round-topped, not very hardy, medium 

 in productiveness; trunk thick; branches stocky, reddish-brown mingled with light ash- 

 gray; branchlets with short intemodes, olive-green more or less overlaid with dark red, 

 smooth, glabrous, with numerous large and very small, inconspicuous lenticels. 



Leaves seven and one-half inches long, two inches wide, folded upward, broad oval- 

 lanceolate, thick, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth, becoming slightly rugose 

 along the midrib; lower surface light gra^^sh-g^een ; margin coarsely crenate to fineh^ 

 serrate, tipped with dark red glands; petiole one-half inch long, with two to five reniform, 

 greenish-yellow, dark-tipped glands variable in position. 



Flower-buds large, long, obtuse, pliunp, very pubescent, somewhat appressed; blossoms 

 appear in mid-season; flowers pink, one and one-half inches across, well distributed; 

 pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green; calyx-lobes medium to broad, 



