406 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



or elongated stone, with a smooth or wrinkled surface, containing 

 one or two descending seeds, enclosing in their coats a large fleshy 

 exalbuminous' embryo. Primus proper consists of trees or shrubs 

 from the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, with alter- 

 nate simple petiolate leaves, at whose bases are two lateral stipules ; 

 the blade is convolute in the bud. The flowers arise before or at the 

 same time as the buds ; they are solitary, in pairs, or in short few- 

 flowered racemes, usually evolved from scaly buds.^ About a score 

 of species are known.^ 



In the genus Primus, botanists are generally agreed in including 

 as so many sections the following types, which are sometimes con- 

 sidered as distinct genera. 



1. The Apricots^ (Fr., Abricotiers) possess a short rather broad 

 floral receptacle, and a fruit with a velvety epicarp, pulpy flesh, and 

 a smooth or wrinkled stone with a longitudinal groove down each 

 edge. Here, too, the leaves are convolute in prsefoliation, and the 

 flowers, pedicellate or subsessile, come out before the leaves from 

 the scaly buds which protected them during the winter. The two 

 or three known species are natives of temperate Asia, except one 

 which comes from America.* 



2. The Peaches^ (Fr., Peckers — fig. 479) have a more or less elon- 

 gated, sometimes tubular, receptacle. The fruit is velvety on the 

 surface, with a more or less fleshy succulent mesocarp, and a very 

 hard stone much wrinkled on the surface. The vernation of the 

 leaves^ is conduplicate (fig. 479), and the flowers behave hke those 



papillate longitudinal lips. In certain Almond 119.— H. B. K., Nov. Gen. et Spec, vi. 190, t. 



dowers we have seen these bearing two supple- 563.— C. Gay, Fl. Ckil., ii. 262.— Waip., Sep., 



mentary ovules above the normal ones, each sur- ii. 8; Ann., ii. 272 ; iv. 651. 



mounted by a vertical process of the placenta •« Armeniaca T., op. cit., 623, t. 399.— J., 



{Adansonia, ix. 152, t. iii. fig. 2). Gen., 341.— Lamk., Diet., i. 1.— DC, op. cit. 



That is, when adult, for we may say that the 531.— Spach, op. cit., 388. 



albumen is double, as in Nymphcea, at an earlier * DC, loc. «Y.— Lindl., Bot. Reg., t. 1243. 



age. In cultivation we not unfrequently find — C Gay, Fl. Chil., 263.— Walp., Ann., ii. 



embryos of Fruuns with three equal or unequal 464.— Lamk., Diet., i. 98. 



cotyledons. o j>ersica T., op. cit., 624, t. 400.— Lamk., 



Usually a httle before. Diet., i. 98; Suppl., iv. 336.— DC, op. cit., 531. 



Seu., DC, op. cit., 532.— DC, Fl. Fr., iv. — Spacu, op. cit., 3li).—Trichocarpus Neck., 



483.— Ghen. & GODR., FL de Fr., i. 513.— Elem., n. 718. 



Ledeb., Ic. Fl. Ross., t. 13.— Spacu, op. cit., ? Tliese are provided with glands in this sec- 



392.— LouE., Fl. Cochuich., ed. 1790, 317— tion, usually better developed than in any of the 



ROXB., Fl. Ind., n. 500.— Miq., Fl. Ind.-Bal., i. others of this genus. Some occupy the apices of 



p. 1, 363.— ToKE. & Ge., Fl. N. Amer., i. 406.— tlie teeth of the limb, while others, much larger, 



A. Geay, Man.ofBot., ed. v. 147; Proceed. Amer. are borne on the sides of the top of the petiole 



Acad., vii. 337. — Cuapm., Fl. S. Unit. -States, (fig. 479). 



