170 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
ALMOND, PLUM, AND CHERRY TREES 
Natural Order Rosacez. Genus Prunus 
Prunus (the old Roman name for the Plum-tree). A genus comprising 
about eighty species of shrubs or trees with simple alternate leaves, white 
or red flowers, which are honeyed and disposed in corymbs, or racemes, or 
produced solitarily. There are five lobes to the calyx, five petals, fifteen 
to twenty stamens, and a single carpel. The species are natives of the 
Northern temperate regions, and rare in the tropics. Four species are 
indigenous to Britain. Most of the species are cultivated for the sake of 
the juicy fruit (Plums, Peaches, Cherries, etc.); those mentioned below 
are suggested on account of their showy flowers. 
atowy: The genus Prunus includes some of the most anciently 
cultivated of plants. Respecting the origin of some of these, 
such as the Almond, the Peach, and the Apricot, there has been much 
dispute. Persia and Northern Africa were formerly considered to be the 
natural home whence these desirable fruits have spread; but the generally 
accepted belief of modern botanists is that the Peach and Apricot are 
natives of China, and the Almond is indigenous to Southern Europe and 
the Levant. The Almond (P. Amygdalus), cultivated from very early 
periods, came to us by way of North Africa at some date prior to 1548, 
and somewhere about the same period we introduced the Apricot (P. : 
Armeniaca) from the Levant. Of the Peach (P. Persica) we have D0 — 
certain records earlier than 1562; it appears to have come to us from 
Persia, where it had then been in cultivation for at least twelve hundred 
eae for Theophrastus in 3.0. 322 speaks of it as a Persian fruit, and 
1b 1s suggested that he became acquainted with it through Alexander's 
expedition to Persia. The Almond is only grown in this country 
for the sake of its flowers, but on the Continent for its fruit; in favourable 
Seasons it ripens these in the South of England. : 
Principal Species,  /RUNUS AMyGpaLus (Almond). Almond-tree. A 
ee a te from 10 to 30 feet high, with oblong-lance-shaped 
Patines ely toothed. Flowers pink or rosy (sometimes white), ped 
iced in abundance before the leaves, in March. During 4 mil 
miuver they sometimes appear in F ebruary, and rarely ever in January: — 
ane fruit is covered with a downy fibrous husk. There are several 
varieties, 
P. ARMENIACA (Armeni : toot He 
with egg-shaped ns man). Apricot. A tree about 15 feet M8 
r heart-shaped, smooth leaves, glandularly toothed. 
