ARMENIACA, APRICOT TREE. 137 



IV. APRICOT TREE small fruit, oblong, sweet kernel. 



Angoumois apricot. (PL ///.) 



This apricot tree is not as large as the ones above. 



Its shoots are slender, very long, brown, smooth & shiny. The bark of the old 

 wood is covered with a whitish or ashy skin. 



The buds are big, oval, and triple along the entire length of the shoot. 



The leaves, that distinguish it clearly from all the other apricot trees, are small, 

 finely & deeply denticulate, and hang from stalks fifteen to twenty lignes long. Both ends 

 are pointed. More typically than the leaves of other apricot trees, they have two little ears 

 on them when they open up. The leaves are three-and-a-quarter inches long & two inches 

 two lignes wide. The ones at the ends of the shoots often are elliptical across their width 

 like those of the common apricot tree, but they always are elongated at the end near the 

 stalk. 



The fruit is small and divided lengthwise by an indistinct groove. It's more 

 noticeable by the irregular lips along its margins than by its depth. It ends in a small, flat 

 area at the top of the fruit & at the other end in a deep & narrow recess where the stalk, 

 about two lignes long, inserts. Its large diameter is fourteen to fifteen lignes, the small 

 diameter from thirteen to fourteen lignes. Its height, sometimes smaller, sometimes 

 larger, is most often equal to its large diameter. Regardless of its dimensions, its shape is 

 usually oblong. 



The skin is a beautiful deep red spotted with purple on the side toward the sun. 

 On the shaded side it's reddish vellow. 



