ies said to exist in China, Downing describes in the United
States seventy-nine {343} native and imported varieties of the peach;
and a few years ago Lindley[671] enumerated one hundred and sixty-four
varieties of the peach and nectarine grown in England. I have already
indicated the chief points of difference between the several varieties.
Nectarines, even when produced from distinct kinds of peaches, always
possess their own peculiar flavour, and are smooth and small.
Clingstone and freestone peaches, which differ in the ripe flesh either
firmly adhering to the stone, or easily separating from it, also differ
in the character of the stone itself; that of the freestones or melters
being more deeply fissured, with the sides of the fissures smoother
than in clingstones. In the various kinds, the flowers differ not only
in size, but in the larger flowers the petals are differently shaped,
more imbricated, generally red in the centre and pale towards the
margin; whereas in the smaller flowers the margins of the petal are
usually more darkly coloured. One variety has nearly white flowers. The
leaves are more or less serrated, and are either destitute of glands,
or have globose or reniform glands;[672] and some few peaches, such as
the Brugnon, bear on the same tree both globular and kidney-shaped
glands.[673] According to Robertson[674] the trees with glandular
leaves are liable to blister, but not in any great degree to mildew;
whilst the non-glandular trees are more subject to curl, to mildew, and
to the attacks of aphides. The varieties differ in the period of their
maturity, in the fruit keeping well, and in hardiness,--the latter
circumstance being especially attended to in the United States. Certain
varieties, such as the Bellegarde, stand forcing in hot-houses better
than other varieties. The flat-peach of China is the most remarkable of
all the varieties; it is so much depressed towards the summit, that the
stone is here covered only by roughened skin and not by a fleshy
layer.[675] Another Chinese variety, called the Honey-peach, is
remarkable from the fruit terminating in a long sharp point; its leaves
are glandless and widely dentate.[676] The Emperor of Russia peach is a
third singular variety, having deeply and doubly serrated leaves; the
fruit is deeply cleft with one-half projecting