Chap. X. PEACH AND NECTARINE. 343 



native and imported varieties of the peach; and a few years ago Lindley 57 

 enumerated one hundred and sixty-four varieties of the peach and nectarine 

 grown in England. I have already indicated the chief points of difference 

 between the several varieties. Nectarines, even when produced from distinct 

 kinds of peaches, always possess their own peculiar flavour, and are smooth 

 and small. Clingstone and freestone peaches, which differ in the ripe flesh 

 either firmly adhering to the stone, or easily separating from it, also differ 

 in the character of the stone itself; that of the freestones or melters being 

 more deeply fissured, with the sides of the fissures smoother than in 

 clingstones. In the various kinds, the flowers differ not only in size, but 

 in the larger flowers the petals are differently shaped, more imbricated, 

 generally red in the centre and pale towards the margin ; whereas in the 

 smaller flowers the margins of the petal are usually more darkly coloured. 

 One variety has nearly white flowers. The leaves are more or less 

 serrated, and are either destitute of glands, or have globose or reniform 

 glands; 53 and some few peaches, such as the Brugnon, bear on the same 

 tree both globular and kidney-shaped glands. 59 According to Eobertson 60 

 the trees with glandular leaves are liable to blister, but not in any great 

 degree to mildew; whilst the non-glandular trees are more subject to 

 curl, to mildew, and to the attacks of aphides. The varieties differ in the 

 period of their maturity, in the fruit keeping well, and in hardiness,— the 

 latter circumstance being especially attended to in the United States. 

 Certain varieties, such as the Bellegarde, stand forcing in hot-houses better 

 than other varieties. The flat-peach of China is the most remarkable of 

 all the varieties; it is so much depressed towards the summit, that the 

 stone is here covered only by roughened skin and not by a fleshy layer. 61 

 Another Chinese variety, called the Honey-peach, is remarkable from the 

 fruit terminating in a long sharp point; its leaves are glandless and 

 widely dentate. 62 The Emperor of Eussia peach is a third singular 

 variety, having deeply and doubly serrated leaves ; the fruit is deeply 

 cleft with one-half projecting considerably beyond the other ; it originated 

 in America, and its seedlings inherit similar leaves. 63 



The peach has also produced in China a small class of trees valued 

 for ornament, namely the double-flowered ; of these five varieties are now 

 known in England, varying from pure white, through rose, to intense 

 crimson. 64 One of these varieties, called the camellia-flowered, bears 

 flowers above 2i inches in diameter, whilst those of the fruit-bearing kinds 

 do not at most exceed li inch in diameter. The flowers of the double- 



5 ? 'Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. v. p. 1865, p. 254. 



554. 61 ' Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. iv. p. 



58 'Loudon's 'Encyclop. of Garden- 512. 

 * ing, ; p. 907. 62 'Journal of Horticulture,' Sept. 



59 M. Carriere, in ' Gard. Chron.,' 8th, 1863, p. 188. 

 gget^ 1865, p. 1154. 63 'Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. vi. p. 



60 < Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. iii. p. 412. 

 332. See also 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 64 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 1857, p. 

 1865, p. 271, to same eti'ect. Also 216. 

 ' Journal of Horticulture,' Sept. 26th, 



