450 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
flesh adhering to its nucleus; it comprehends the White, Yellow, 
Red, and Monster Clingstone Peach. In the second variety the 
flesh is melting and easily detached from the stone. These are 
Peaches, properly speaking, the different varieties of which have 
given us fruits as remarkable for their flavour as their beauty. 
The third variety is distinguished from the two preceding” by its 
pellicle, which is shiny, and not tomentose. It comprehends the 
Violet Peach, the flesh of which easily detaches itself from the 
stone, and the Nectarine, the flesh of which adheres to it. 
Of the genera Prunus, the flowers present characteristics nearly — 
identical with those of the genus Amygdalus, but it differs in the 
structure of the fruit. It comprehends the Apricot, Plum, and 
Cherry. 
The Apricot (Prunus Armeniaca) gives a velvety drupe, the 
shiny stone of which has one obtuse side and the other supplied 
by a sort of keel, running along two lateral furrows. This tree is a 
native of Armenia. It is of middle size, and has rotund leaves, 
nearly in the shape of a heart, terminating in a point, and 
dentated. The flowers are white, and disposed in little clusters 
eae 
very close together at the upper part of the branches. We may ~ 
mention, among the varieties cultivated in France, the Early 
Apricot, the fruit of which is. of a yellowish colour, as large as 
a nut, with a heavy and rather bitter saffron-coloured flesh. The 
Angoumais Apricot is of middle size, and the flesh is red and 
pleasantly fragrant. The Common Apricot (Peach Apricot), the . 
largest of all, the flesh of which is yellow, melting, and of a 
peculiar flavour, is the variety chiefly cultivated in England. 
The fruit of the Plum-tree is smooth, and covered with a glau- 
cous bloom. The stone presents one side rotund and hollowed into = 
one furrow, on the other side there are two lateral furrows. 
cultivated Plums with alimentary fruit have but two stocks on 
which the varieties are grafted, perhaps we might say but one, 
namely, Prunus insititia and domestica. 
The Domestic Plum is a fine branching tree, of from ten ie 
twenty feet in height, with spreading branches, elliptical, sharp, 
crenullate, and dentate leaves. Its flowers are of a white colour, 
and appear before the leaves. It is often met with in hedges and 
on the borders of woods, but never in the interior of ooh . 
