AMYGDALUS, ALMONDTREE. 119 



This one's flower is fourteen lignes in diameter. The petals are six & a half lignes 

 long & slightly less wide. The tips are heart-shaped but with just a small cleft. No other 

 kind of cultivated almond tree has flower petals as wide in proportion to their length. The 

 flower is almost all white. It frequently has six petals, & the calyx has six sections. 



The leaves on the shoots are five to five-&-one-half inches long by one inch at 

 their widest point. This is nearer to the stalk than it is to the other end that terminates in a 

 uniform point. The end next to the stalk also is pointed, but less sharply. The stalks are 

 eight to twelve lignes long. The leaves on the fruiting branches are only two or three 

 inches long & nine or ten lignes wide; they're less pointed than those on the shoots. 



The fruit is thirteen to fifteen lignes long, ten to twelve wide at its widest diameter 

 & eight to nine at its small diameter. It decreases in size considerably & almost uniformly 

 toward the tip that ends in a small stub formed by the remainder of the dried-up pistil. 

 The more rounded side, i.e. the one describing the greater part of an ellipse, arises from a 

 very prominent rib that extends from the tip to the stalk & that covers the ridge on the pit. 

 The stalk that supports it is thick, round, smooth, green, two lignes long at most, and very 

 wide at the end that inserts into the fruit. The skin is a whitish green and is covered with 

 very thick down. 



The pit is the same shape as the fruit, measuring about a ligne-&-a-ha\f less in 

 each dimension. It ends in a sharp point & contains a sweet almond with a pleasant taste. 



This almond tree, the most common one in our gardens, is quite fertile. If 

 propagated by seed planting, the almond trees 



