58 



POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



brown dust; they are not often imported in the shell. 2. 

 The Yalentia Almonds^ which we receive from Spain ; they 

 are not quite so long as the Jordan variety, but are broader, 

 and the skin is covered with a fine dust of the same colour 

 as itself; sometimes imported in the shell. 3. The Barbary 

 and Italian Almonds, which appear to be the same variety ; 

 they are shorter, rounder, and smaller than either of the 

 other sorts ; they are most frequently imported in the shell. 



The almond is very closely allied to the peach, which is 

 in fact a species of Amygdalus {A, _persica), and, like it, con- 

 sists of a fleshy fruit, containing a seed enclosed in a hard 

 shell or putamen {endocarp). In the almond this fruit is 

 not so succulent as in the peach, and does not adhere to the 

 shell ; when ripe it becomes hard, splits, or dehisces, so that 

 the nut drops out. The almond-tree grows to about the 

 same size as the common plum, and in this climate its flowers 

 are produced very early in the spring, before any leaves ap- 

 pear ; this habit furnished the poet Moore with the following 

 poetical simile : — 



'^The hope, in dreams of a happier hour, 

 That alights on misery's brow, 

 Springs out of the silvery almond-flower. 

 That blooms on a leafless bough." 



