16 



BOTANICAL CHARACTERS. 



The peach, Persica vulgaris^ was distinguished by 

 early botanists as Amygdalus Persica^ and belongs to 

 the Icosandria Monogynia class and order of the 

 Linnsean system, and to the Rosacese of the natural 

 arrangement. In its natural state the tree is under 

 the middle size, with spreading branches ; Leaves con- 

 duplicate when young, lanceolate, glabrous, and ser- 

 rated \ Flowers almost sessile, solitary or twin, rising 

 from the scaly buds earlier than the leaves, with 

 reddish calyxes, and pale or dark red corollas. Fruity 

 a fleshy drupe, with a velvety epicarp ; roundish, 

 generally pointed, with a longitudinal groove ; the 

 pulp, or sarcocarp, large, fleshy, succulent, usually 

 white or yellowish, but sometimes reddish, and 

 abounding with a grateful sweet-acid juice. The 

 stone hard, having its shell, or putamen, wrinkled 

 with irregular furrows, and its kernel bitter. 



Its native country, both by the ancients and mo- 

 derns, has been considered to be Persia, but it is also 

 found wild in various parts of Asiatic Turkey. Pallas 

 also found it in the southern districts of the Caucasus ; 

 and it has been truly observed, that from its fre- 

 quency of occurrence, and its fruitfulness with but 

 little cultivation between 30 and 40 degs. N. latitude. 



