THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 85 



fresh, canned or dried, fruit-buyers in America prefer the peach. This 

 discrimination in favor of the peach is largely due to lack of knowledge of 

 the nectarine, which, though different from the commoner fruit, is equally 

 delectable, fresh or preserved, and certainly is a handsomer product pre- 

 served either by canning or evaporating. Indeed, the dried nectarine, 

 with its beautiful, translucent, amber hue is the most attractive of all 

 cured fruits. The nectarine-industry, however, belongs to California^ 

 where all conditions favor production, canning and curing. 



PRUNUS DAVmUNA (Carriere) Franchet 



P. Davidiana Franchet Nouv. Arch. Mus. Paris ser. 2, V:255 (PI. David. 1:103). 1883. 



Persica Davidiana Carriere Reo. Hort. 74. 1872. 



Prunus PersicavsiT Davidiana M.Siximowicz Bui. Acad. Sci. Si. Petersbourg2g:8i; Mel. Biol. 11:667. 1883. 



Tree attaining a height of twenty-five feet on the Station grounds, vigorous, upright, 

 with slight spreading tendency, dense-topped, hardy in tree but not in flower-bud, unpro, 

 ductive; trunk stocky; branches thick, smooth, bronze-colored; branchlets slender- 

 inclined to rebranch, long, with rather short intemodes, ash-gray mingled toward the 

 base with dark brown, glabrous, with inconspicuous, small, slightly raised lenticels. 



Leaves five and one-half inches long, one and one-eighth inches wide, curled down- 

 ward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thick; upper surface smooth, dull, dark green; lower 

 surface grayish-green; margin coarsely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiple 

 five-eighths inch long, glandless or with one or two small, globose, reddish glands at the 

 base of the leaf. 



Flower-buds tender, small, pointed, plump, appressed, brownish-red; flowers appear 

 very early, a few days earlier than Prunus tomentosa, usually on short spurs; blossoms 

 one and five-eighths inches across, whitish, tinged with pale pink near the margins, we:ll 

 distributed, usually singly; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, 

 orange-colored within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes long, narrow, glabrous within and 

 without; petals widely spaced, oval, shallowly dentate, tapering to long, white claws; 

 filaments shorter than the petals; pistil red, heavily pubescent at the ovary, as long as 

 the stamens. 



Fruit less than one inch in diameter, nearly spherical ; cavity medium in width and 

 depth; suture shallow, deeper toward the base; apex mucronate; color grayish-white 

 turning yellow at maturity; pubescence downy; skin wrinkles and roughens before matu- 

 rity and soon decays; flesh very thin, rather dry, tasteless and insipid, lacking almost 

 entirelv the flavor of the peach; not edible; stone separates from the pulp readily even 

 before ripe, nearly spherical, plump, very blunt at base and apex; surfaces deeply pitted. 



Father David's peach, Prunus davidiana, has been grown in Europe 

 since 1865 as an ornamental, seeds of it having been sent from China to 

 France in that year by Father David, a missionary traveler.^ The species 



1 Bretschneider E. Bot. Explor. in China 2:860. 1898. 



