Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/215

PEACH 205 hereafter accepted is prunus Persica. The belief that the peach originated in Persia is in- dicated in its early generic and present specific names, and by its having been formerly called malum Persicum ; it was apparently brought Peach Tree (Amygdalus Persica). from that country to Europe, but De Oandolle, who has carefully investigated the matter, re- gards the trees growing wild in Turkey, Per- sia, and other parts of western Asia as indi- cations that the fruit has long been cultivated in those countries, and thinks its probable origin was in China, where it has been cultiva- ted from the earliest times. The peach is not mentioned in the Bible, though the almond is Peach Flower. named several times. Darwin evidently in- clines to the view that the peach is derived from the almond, as the two have been cross- fertilized and produced fruit intermediate in character; this with other facts supporting this view, as well as the evidence to the con- trary, are given in detail in his " Plants and Animals under Domestication" (1868). The peach is a tree of medium size with a spread- ing head, rarely reaching 30 ft., and usually not more than 15 or 20 ft. high ; it is com- monly regarded as a short-lived tree, but in a genial soil and climate it attains a good age, there being in Virginia trees that were planted 70 years ago, and there is in France a vigorous tree known to be 95 years old and supposed to be considerably over 100. The leaves are petioled, long, narrowly lanceolate, and ser- rate, of a deep green color, which in autumn turns yellowish or brown ; upon the petioles and at the base of the leaf are often found small glands which are of use in describing varieties, and the presence or absence of these glands is pretty constantly attended by differ- ences in the serratures or teeth on the mar- gin of the leaf; in varieties without glands, the leaves are deeply and very sharply toothed, while if present the serration is crenate, the teeth being round- ed and shallower ; the glands are globose or reniform (kidney- shaped), each form being constant in the same variety. The flowers, which appear before the leaves and from separate scaly buds, have the general structure of those in this section of the rose family; the deciduous calyx has a short bell-shaped tube, with five spread- ing lobes ; the five petals, insert- ed on the throat of the calyx tube, are spreading and usually rose-colored, varying considerably in size in the cultivated varieties ; stamens numerous, with slender filaments, and inserted with the petals ; pistil solitary, free, with a. single style, the ovary containing L^ two ovules, only one of which is er Buds, usually developed into a seed. The fruit is of that kind called a drupe or stone fruit ; its theoretical structure is that the cells of the carpellary leaf composing the pistil take on, as the fruit grows, two very distinct forms of development ; the outer portion, corre- sponding to the under side of the leaf, becomes fleshy, and when ripe very soft and succulent, while in the inner portion the cells of the upper side of the carpellary leaf become at length filled with an indurating matter, and ultimately form the hard, nut-like body known as the stone. The peach stone is not the seed proper, but a portion of the pericarp or seed vessel ; technically, the fleshy part of the peach is the sarcocarp, and the inner the putamen ; in some peaches these two parts when ripe are readily separable, such being called freestones, while in others the two are firmly held to- gether, and these are known as clingstones. The stones of the different varieties differ much in their relative length and breadth, and some are terminated by a long sharp point ; th*