THE GENUS PRUNUS 



THE PEACH AND NECTARINE 117 



THE GENUS PRUNUS 



Here belong almonds, apricots, cherries, 

 nectarines, peaches, and plums, constituting a 

 genus that contains a greater number of dis- 

 tinct, natural esculents than any other similar 

 botanical group. There are in the genus some 

 forty odd species of edible fruits, which, 

 through long cultivation, have been broken 

 up into many orchard-varieties. The distin- 

 guishing characters of Prunus are: 



Trees or shrubs with astringent properties. Leaves 

 conduplicate or convolute in the bud, alternate, simple, 

 serrate, petiolate, deciduous or persistent ; stipules free 

 from the petiole, lanceolate, glandular, deciduous. Flow- 

 ers solitary, in corymbs or racemes, appearing from 

 separate buds before, with, or after the leaves ; calyx 

 five-lobed ; tube obconic or tubular, deciduous ; stamens 

 15 to 20, inserted with the petals in three rows ; pistils 

 with one carpel or rarely with two or more carpels ; 

 ovary inserted in the bottom of the calyx-tube, one-celled. 

 Fruit a drupe, with a glaucous or pubescent outer cov- 

 ering, a pulpy, dry or leathery flesh covering, a bony, 

 smooth or rugose pit or stone which is one- or rarely 

 two-seeded. 



Nearly every botanist who has worked with 

 Prunus has grouped the stone-fruits according 

 to a plan of his own, and there are, therefore, 

 many schemes of classification, and conse- 

 quently much confusion in the nomenclature 

 of this genus. Happily, these differences made 

 by botanists need not confuse pomologists, for 

 each of the stone-fruits constitutes a distinct 

 pomological group. No fruit-grower could 

 mistake in tree or fruit the peach, plum, cherry, 

 apricot, or almond. For the purpose of this 

 manual, one of the oldest, but still most com- 

 monly used classifications is accepted, in which 

 all of the drupe-fruits are placed in one genus. 

 The lines of cleavage between the several 

 groups of common culture are easily distin- 

 guished, there being four distinct subgenera. 



1. Amygdalus. Peach and Nectarine. Leaves condu- 

 plicate in vernation. Flowers solitary, sessile or nearly 

 so, appearing before the leaves. Fruit pubescent in the 

 peach, smooth in the nectarine ; the flesh thick and 

 succulent (dry and leathery in the almond which belongs 

 to this group) ; the stone compressed, thick- walled, 

 rugose and deeply pitted. 



2. Armeniaca. Apricot. Leaves conduplicate in 

 vernation. Flowers solitary, with short pedicels, appear- 

 ing before the leaves. Fruit pubescent, with succulent 

 flesh and a thick-walled conspicuously winged smooth 

 or pitted stone ; peduncle separating from the mature 

 fruit. 



3. Prunophora. Plum. Leaves conduplicate or con- 

 volute in vernation. Flowers with pedicels, borne in 

 cymes, appearing before the leaves. Fruit smooth, suc- 

 culent, often covered with a glaucous bloom ; stone com- 

 pressed, smooth or slightly rugose, grooved on the dorsal 

 and acute-margined on the ventral suture ; peduncle 

 slender, usually remaining with the fruit. 



4. Cerasus. Cherry. Leaves conduplicate in verna- 

 tion. Flowers with pedicels, borne in fascicles or 

 corymbs, appearing before or with the leaves. Fruits 

 globular, not sulcate, glabrous, not glaucous, smooth, 

 or rarely slightly hairy ; flesh succulent ; stones turgid, 

 nearly globular, smooth or slightly rugose, ridged on 

 the ventral suture. 



THE PEACH AND NECTARINE 



1. Prunus Peryica, Stokes. Tree low, diffuse ; bark 

 dark reddish-brown, in old trees rough and scaly ; 

 branches spreading, slender ; twigs slender, glabrous, 

 glossy green changing to shades of red, with numerous, 

 conspicuous lenticels. Leaves alternate, simple, 4-7 



inches long, 1-2 inches wide, oblong-lanceolate ; upper 

 surface pale, with little or no pubescence ; apex long- 

 tapering, base acute or abrupt ; margins serrate or 

 crenate, tipped with glands or glandless ; petioles %-l 

 inch long, grooved, glandless or with 1-8 globose or 

 reniform glands. Flowers from wood of the previous 

 season ; flower-buds plump, conical, free or appressed, 

 appearing before the leaves ; flowers of two sizes, the 

 smaller size ranging under 1 inch in diameter, the larger, 

 l J / inches; the floral color pure white, pink, or red; 

 pedicels very short, glabrous, green. Fruit sub-globular ; 

 suture usually distinct ; cavity well marked, abrupt ; 

 apex with a mamelon or mucronate tip ; color varying 

 from greenish-white to orange -yellow, usually with a red 

 cheek, sometimes covered with red ; very pubescent 

 except in the nectarine ; skin adherent or free from the 

 pulp ; flesh greenish-white or yellowish, often stained 

 with red at the pit, occasionally red, sweet or acidulous, 

 aromatic ; stone free or clinging, elliptic or ovoid, 

 compressed, pointed ; outer surfaces wrinkled and pitted, 

 inner surfaces polished ; ventral and dorsal sutures 

 grooved or furrowed, sometimes winged ; the seed almond- 

 like, aromatic, bitter. 



The name of this fruit has brought about a 

 misunderstanding as to its origin. The word 

 "peach" and most of its equivalents in the 

 countries of Europe are derived from "Persia." 

 This has given rise to the supposition that the 

 fruit originated in Persia; in fact, it is so 

 stated by all the ancient Roman authors who 

 mention the peach. The peach, however, 

 comes from eastern Asia, where it is now 

 found wild, and where Chinese records show 

 that it was cultivated long before there were 

 records of it in Persia or in southern Europe; 

 it was grown in China 2000 years before its 

 introduction into Europe. Some have believed 

 that the peach is but a modified almond, but 

 in the light of recent botanical and historical 

 evidence this theory finds little support. 



The species is usually divided by botanists, 

 who name several botanical varieties. Two 

 of these are edible fruits, the nectarine and 

 the Peento peach. But these two botanical 

 varieties, originating again and again in the 

 case of the nectarine as a bud or seed muta- 

 tion, and in the case of the Peento peach prob- 

 ably having originated as a mutation, are not 

 more distinct from the parent species than 

 the red-fleshed, the Snowball peach, the Yellow 

 Transvaals from South Africa, the nippled 

 peach, the cleft peach, the beaked peach, the 

 winter peaches of China, or the pot-grown 

 dwarfs from China; in fact, the nectarine and 

 the flat peach are no more different from 

 pubescent and globular peaches than the cling- 

 stone is from the freestone, the yellow-fleshed 

 from the white-fleshed variety, or the large- 

 flowered from the small-flowered sorts. All 

 may as well be considered pomological groups; 

 all are becoming interminably confused by 

 hybridization. 



Few other fruits are found under such varied 

 conditions and over such extended areas as 

 the peach. Once a wild inhabitant of China, 

 it is now cultivated in every part of that vast 

 Empire where agriculture is an industry; the 

 trees are so abundant and so at home in the 

 orchards and forests of Turkestan and Persia 

 as to have given rise to the belief that they 

 have always grown there. Peaches thrive in all 

 parts of southern Europe, and are grown in 

 pots and on walls in northern European lati- 



