384 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



Prunus Amyg-dalus. J. Hooker.* (Amygdalus communis, Linne.) 



The Almond-tree. Countries around the Mediterranean Sea and 

 South-Western Asia ; really indigenous on the Anti-Lebanon, in 

 Kurdestan, Turkestan and perhaps on the Caucasus [Stewart]. 

 Both the sweet and bitter almond are derived from this species. 

 The cost of gathering the crop in South-Europe is about 20 per 

 cent, of its market-value. Their uses and the value of the highly 

 palatable oil, obtained by pressure from them, are well known. 

 This oil can well be chosen as a means of providing a pleasant 

 substitute for milk during sea-voyages, by mixing with it, when 

 required, half its weight of powdered gum-arabic, and adding then 

 successively, while quickly agitating in a stone-mortar, about double 

 the quantity of water ; thus a palatable and wholesome sort of 

 cream for tea or coffee is obtained at any moment. Baked remnants 

 of Almonds, left after they have been used at the oil-mill afford one 

 of the best kinds of food for diabetic sufferers. There exist hard- 

 and soft-shelled varieties of both the sweet and bitter almond. The 

 Almond-tree is subject to two fungus-diseases, caused by Cercos- 

 pora circumscissa and Sporidesmium Amygdalearum [Frank]. 

 Almonds can even be grown on sea-shores. The tree bears still 

 the climate of Christiania in Norway [Professor Schuebeler], and 

 it has been successfully reared by the Moravian missionaries in the 

 most arid regions of Central Australia, but it does not thrive so 

 well there as the Peach-tree. The crystalline amygdalin can best 

 be prepared from bitter almonds, through removing the oil by 

 pressure, then subjecting them to distillation with alcohol, and 

 finally precipitating with ether. The volatile bitter almond-oil 

 a very dangerous liquid is obtained by aqueous distillation. Dis- 

 solved in alcohol it forms the essence of almonds. This can also 

 be prepared from peach-kernels. The almond-tree is one of the 

 aptest, to be chosen as a standard of comparison with other kinds 

 of trees (as well as other plants) for records of S}'nchronous flower- 

 ing time. The flower affords to bees, early in the season, nectar 

 and pollen. With the European Walnut-tree and the Olive-tree 

 cultivated on a vast commercial scale at Santa-Barbara by Captain 

 Ellwood Cooper, the President of the State-board for horticulture 

 in California. Import of almonds into Victoria during 1887, 140,591 

 Ibs., valued at 5,942. Britain imported 130,000 cwt. valued at 

 412,000, in 1889. 



Prunus Armeniaca, Linne.* (Armeniaca vulgaris, Lamarck.) 



The Apricot-tree. China, as already indicated by Roxburgh, not 

 indigenous in Armenia. Cultivated up to 10,000 feet in the Hima- 

 layas. Professor C. Koch points to the alliance of this tree to P. 

 Sibirica (Linne), and he considers P. dasycarpa (Ehrhart) to be a 

 hybrid between the apricot- and plum-tree. A variety of apricot 

 occurs with a sweet kernel. Cold-pressed apricot-seeds yield an oil 

 much like that of almonds. Muspratt found as much as 24 per 

 cent, tannin in the bark. The Chinese P. Mume (Sieb. and Zucc.), 



