NAT. ORDER 

 Amydalaceoe. 



AMYDALUS PERSICA. THE PEACH. 



Class XII. ICOSANDRIA. Orck}- I. MONOGYNIA. 



Gen. Char. Calij.r, quinquefid, inferior. Petals, five. Dnipe, hav- 

 ing a shell perforated with pores. Skin, pubescent. 



Spe. Char. All the serratures of the leaves, acute. Floicers, 

 sessile and solitary. 



The common Peach-tree grows to a considerable height, and 

 sends off numerous spreading branches : the leaves are long, narrow, 

 pointed, elliptical, acutely serrated, on footstalks, and alternate ; the 



Jloircrs are sessile, purplish, solitary and large ; calijx tubular, divided 

 at the margin into five ovate segments, and at the base beset with 

 numerous scales ; petals five, inversely ovate, spreading, attached by 

 short claws ; Jilaments numerous, tapering, inserted into the calyx, 

 furnished with purplish anthers ; go-men, roundish, downy ; style 

 short, simple, terminated by a round stigma ; the fruit is too well 

 known to require any description. The tree is of quick growth, 

 and not of long duration. It blossoms in April, and ripens its fruit 

 in August and September. 



Dr. Sickler considers that Persia is the original country of the 

 Peach, which in Media is deemed unwiiolesome, but when planted 

 in Egypt becomes pulpy, delicious and salubrious. The Peach, also, 

 according to Columella, when first brought from Persia into the 

 Roman empire, possessed deleterious properties, which T. A. Knight 

 concludes to have arisen from those Peaches to be only swollen 



^almonds (the tuhcrcs of Pliny), or imperfect Peaches, and which are 



Vol. iii.— 109. 



