72 



Report upon the Varieties of Apricot, 



15. Musch Musch Apricot. 

 Syn. Abricot d'Alexandrie. Kraft, Pom. Austr. p. 29, t. 58, f. 1. 

 Musch Musch. Noisette, Manuel, p. 490. Baumann, 

 Taschenbuch, p. 389. Hort. Soc. Cat. No. 43. Bon 

 Jard. 1828, p. 306. 



Leaves roundish, subcordate, acuminate, doubly and unequally serrated. Fruit about 

 the size of a Masculine, roundish, compressed with a deep suture. Skin straw-colour 

 next the wall, deep orange in the sun, tinged with red where much exposed, very slightly 

 downy. Flesh tender, very sweet, semi-transparent, Stone roundish, with a very sharp 

 ridge on each side, and much compressed. Kernel perfectly sweet like a nut. 



This variety produced fruit for the first time in this country in 

 the end of July, 1830, upon a plant received from Messrs. Baumann 

 of Bollwiller. As the nearest approach to the wild state of the 

 Apricot, as a fruit of considerable intrinsic merit, and as the only 

 one that as far as we know is capable of being dried, this variety 

 possesses so much interest that a figure of it has been prepared by 

 Mrs. Withers. From M. Regnier's account in the Magazin 

 Encyclopedique, for November, 1815, translated in the Appendix 

 to the third Volume of the first series of these Transactions, it 

 appears to be a native of those fertile insulated spots in the deserts 

 of Upper Egypt, called Oases, where the fruit is gathered and dried 

 in large quantities for sale. It there grows spontaneously, almost 

 without any cultivation, and the only method possessed of propa- 

 gating it, in those parts, is by seeds. 



We do not yet know enough of it to be able to judge how far 

 it may become a valuable variety in this climate. 



