IJBRAPY 

 NEW YORK 

 BOTANICAL 



QARORN 



THE PE^CH. 



DEFINITIONS AND LEGEND OF ITS ORIGIN. 



Standard -Dictionary : A well-known, high-flavored, juicy fruit, 

 containing one or two seeds in a hard, almond-like endocarp or stone ; 

 also, the tree which bears it. 



Century Dictionary: (1) The fleshy, drupaceous fruit of the tree 

 Prumispersica. (2) A garden and orchard tree, Prunus or Amygdalus 

 persica. The peach is a rather weak, irregular tree, fifteen or twenty 

 feet high, with shining, lanceolate leaves, and pink flowers appearing 

 before the leaves. The roundish or elliptical fruit is two or three 

 inches in diameter, and covered with down ; when ripe, the color is 

 whitish or yellow, beautifully blushed with red ; its fruit is subacid, 

 luscious, and wholesome. The peach is closely allied to the almond, 

 from which Darwin inclines to derive it. Its local origin has com- 

 monly been ascribed to Persia, but the investigations of De Candolle 

 point to China. It is now widely cultivated in warm, temperate cli- 

 mates, most successfully in China and the United States, as in Dela- 

 ware, on the shores of the Chesapeake bay and Lake Michigan, and 

 in California. The canning of peaches is now a large local industry ; 

 large quantities are also dried, and some are made into peach brandy. 

 The seed often takes the place of bitter almonds as a source of oil, 

 etc. Peach leaves and flowers are laxative and anthelmintic. The 

 varieties of the peach are numberless, a general distinction being be- 

 tween clingstones and freestones, and again between the white and 

 yellow fleshed. The flat peach, or peento, is a fancy Chinese variety, 

 having the fruit so compressed that only the skin covers the end of 

 the stone. Another Chinese variety, the crooked peach, has the fruit 

 long and bent, and remarkably sweet. In ornamental use there is a 

 weeping i^each ; and various dwarf and double-flowered varieties, called 

 flowering peaches, have been produced, with pure white or variously, 

 often very brilliantly, colored flowers. 



Legend of its Origin: The Japanese, who claim to have first dis- 

 covered or utilized the peach, have a quaint legend as to the fruit. A 

 pious old couple, stricken with years and poverty, subsisted by beg- 

 ging. One day on the highway the old woman found a beautiful rii^e 

 peach. Although almost famished, she did not selfishly eat the lus- 

 cious fruit alone, but took it home to divide with her husband. As 



