90 THE PEACHES OP NEW YORK 



garden peaches for the large and deeply ftirrowed stone one that is quite 

 smooth and small." 



Prunus mira is now under ctdtivation at the Arnold Arboretum near 



Boston, in the parks at Rochester, New York, on the grounds of this Station 

 and at Brookville, Florida, in charge of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. No doubt within a few years we shall have positive evidence 

 of its horticultural value. 



PUBESCENT-FRUITED SPECIES OF PRUNUS FROM THE UNITED STATES 



Seven pubescent-fruited species of Prunus are found in the South- 

 western States. From reading the descriptions, it is hard to tell whether 

 these plants, unique in more than one respect, are most closely related to 

 peaches, plums, apricots or almonds. Professor S. C. Mason of the United 

 States Department of Agricultiire, who has studied these fruits,^ thinks 

 that some if not all of them may have horticultural value, at least in the 

 Southwest where fluctuations of heat and cold are great and drought and 

 alkalinity of soil must be endured by plant-life. They deserve brief mention 

 in The Peaches of New York because of the possibility that some of them 

 can be used as dwarfing-stocks for the peach and possibly that some may 

 be hybridized with cultivated peaches. The species, with brief notes 

 taken for most part from Mason, are as follows: 



Prunus texana Dietrich, the " wild peach " of Texas, is a plum-like 

 fruit from eastern Texas of which there are already several hybrids with 

 the wild plums of the region. Prunus andersonii Gray is the " wild 

 almond " or " wild peach " of Nevada. The species is found in western 

 Nevada and eastern California in a region subject to severe cold in winter 

 and extreme drought and heat in summer. One cultivator of this species 

 suggests it as a good stock for the peach and the almond and thinks it has 

 possibilities for hybridization.^ The " desert apricot," Prunus eriogyna 

 Mason, comes from a very restricted region in southern California. The 

 characters of this species should fit it to endure the environment on the 

 desert slopes of mountains. The " desert almond," Prunus fasciculata 

 Torrey, sometimes called " wild peach " and " wild almond," ranges much 

 farther south and east than Prunus andersonii in southern Nevada and 

 southern California, crossing into southwestern Utah and northwestern 

 Arizona, and grows in gravels and sands where its roots penetrate to great 



' Jour. Agr. Research 1:147-177. 1913. 



2 U. S. D. A. Seeds and Plants Imported Invent. 13:173. 1908. 



