l88 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



narrow, abrupt, usually white; suture shallow; apex round, with a mucronate tip; color dull 

 greenish-white, entirely overspread with dingy pink mingled with splashes and stripes 

 of darker, clouded red, mottled; pubescence long, coarse; skin tough, adherent to the pulp; 

 flesh red, becoming lighter colored next the stone, juicy, coarFe, stringy, tough and meaty, 

 brisk, pleasantly flavored; fair in quality; stone clinging, one and one-fourth inches long, 

 seven-eighths inch wide, oval to slightly obovate, short-pointed, strongly bulged near the 

 apex, with grooved and pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed at the sides, 

 narrow; dorsal suture deep, medium in width. 



BLOOD LEAF 

 1. Mich. Sla. Bui. 118:33. 1895. 



Blood-leaved Peach. 2. Card. Mon. 13:206. 1871. i. Ibid. 14:316, PI. 1872. 4. Ibid. 15:142, 

 183. 1873. 5. Horticulturisl iS: 155. 1873. 6. Garrf. .Won. 17:58, 59. 1875. 



Blood Leaf is a handsome ornamental. Its beet-red leaves in early 

 spring and its pink blossoms, borne in great profusion, entitle it to esteem 

 for both foliage and flowers. It is worth growing as well for its fruits. 

 The color-plate opposite page 78 shows the flowers and the accompanying 

 illustration depicts the fruit-characters. The peaches are in no way- 

 remarkable and yet they please some as a dessert fruit. Seedlings springing 

 up under two trees of this variety in the Station orchard in 19 13, furnished 

 interesting data on the inheritance of the blood-red color in the leaves 

 of this peach. Out of 252 young trees, 189 were red-leaved and 63 green- 

 leaved — an exact three-to-one ratio to show that the green color is carried 

 as a recessive. 



Several stories are told of the origin of this peach. One is that on 

 the battlefield of Fort Donelson, Kentucky, a southern general, fatally 

 wounded, sucked the juice of a peach and threw the stone into the little 

 pool of blood which flowed from his side. From this pit in its bloody 

 seed-bed sprang the tree with its blood-red leaves. John L. Hebron, in 

 a letter published in Gardener's Monthly, 1873, tells a different tale. 

 According to Hebron the variety was found by P. I. Connor in 1866 at 

 Champion Hills, Mississippi, on the battlefield where General Tilghman 

 was killed, a tree having sprung up close to the spot where the General 

 died. The variety is sometimes called the General Tilghman peach. Leav- 

 ing fable and coming to facts, we find that the variety originated in 

 Mississippi in the sixties and was introduced to the trade in 1871. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, willowy in growth, open-topped, hardy, 

 unproductive; trunk thick, rough; branches smooth, reddish-bronze overspread with light 

 ash-gray; branchlets slender, long, with short intemodes, dull green overlaid with dark 

 red, smooth, glabrous, with numerous small, inconspicuous lenticels. 



