92 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



mesocarp, or portion of the fruit which in the peach is 

 juicy, being in the almond dry and leathery. The almond 

 is subject to a singular malady, which at midsummer, 

 when the tree is viewed from some little distance, gives the 

 spectator an idea of large bright red flowers or fruits, very 

 odd and perplexing, till examined. Then it is found that 

 certain of the leaves have been attacked by a parasitic 

 fungus, called Ascomyces deformans. The fungus lives 

 inside the leaf, and bursts through the skin, the entire 

 leaf being at the same time most curiously bulged and 

 curled. Peach-trees are subject to attack by the same 

 enemy. The only cure for it, or method of preventing 

 recurrence, is to pick off the infected leaves and burn 

 them. 



The almonds of the shops are brought chiefly from the 

 south of France and Spain. Great quantities are ripened, 

 in particular, in Provence, the blossoms being there 

 seldom injured by frost. A few are received also from 

 Italy and from Barbary. Those used for culinary pur- 

 poses, the dingy-brown, flattish, and somewhat dusty 

 ones the poorer sort called "Valencias," came origi- 

 nally from the province of that name. The more 

 elongated, rounder, and clear-skinned variety used for the 

 table, are "Jordan" almonds. Not that they have 

 anything to do with the renowned river of Palestine, all 

 being received from Malaga. The epithet came into 

 existence through a mistaken understanding of the name 

 by which this fruit is called in the Promptorium Parvu- 

 lorum, the celebrated old English -Latin Dictionary 



