Flora of New Zealand Series

peach

Deciduous, small and spreading tree with rather open habit, up to 4-(6) m high when mature, not armed; trunk usually short. Lf petiole (3)-4-(10) mm long, glabrous; blade ± thin, lanceolate to narrow-elliptic, (50)-70-150-(170) × 12-40-(50) mm, short-acuminate, ± attenuate at base, glabrous or with a few scattered hairs above and below, serrulate to obscurely 2-serrate with ± cuspidate teeth, often undulate; stipules narrow-triangular, deciduous. Fls usually solitary, occasionally paired, not fragrant, on short lateral shoots; pedicel very short, glabrous. Hypanthium very broad; sepals oblong, 3-4 mm long, obtuse, tomentose, greenish purple, erect but finally spreading. Petals 5, erect to spreading, orbicular to broadly oblong, 12-16 × 8-10 mm, very shallowly emarginate, pale pink. Stamens slightly < or = petals; filaments pinkish. Fr. (35)-50-80 mm long, globose, sulcate, tomentose, greenish yellow to red, often much more deeply coloured on side exposed to sun, succulent and sweet; stone deeply pitted and furrowed.

N.: N. Auckland - frequent around Hokianga Harbour and Kaikohe, S. Auckland (Mayor Id, Opotiki); S.: Canterbury (Christchurch area, Banks Peninsula), Otago (Dunedin); K.

China 1869

Grassy and scrub-covered hillsides, roadsides, tracks, railways, wasteland.

FL Aug-Oct.

P. persica is widely cultivated for its fr. and there are many cvs. In N. Auckland it occurs both as isolated trees and in small groups, often on the margins of old plantations. Almost as common in cultivation as the ordinary downy-skinned peaches are the glabrous-skinned nectarines; these are cvs of P. persica and as a group are often referred to as var. nucipersica (Suckow) C. Schneider, or sometimes var. nectarina (Aiton) Maxim. although they arose in cultivation. Both the peach and nectarine often persist in old gardens as relics of cultivation and the latter is listed as wild for Canterbury by Healy, A. J., in Knox, G. A. (Ed.) The Natural History of Canterbury (1968).

P. persica can easily be confused with P. dulcis (Miller) D. A. Webb (P. amygdalus Batsch), almond, which is commonly grown in N.Z. and may persist as a cultivation relic. Vegetative and floral characters only differ slightly with almonds usually having more finely toothed lvs with longer petioles, but almond frs differ greatly in being dry and dehiscent at maturity with stones pitted but not furrowed. Much more common in cultivation in N.Z. than almond is P. × amygdalopersica (Weston) Rehder, a hybrid between peach and almond which flowers earlier than the parents. Like the almond it is confused with the peach and identification is difficult without frs. These are ± dry like the almond and eventually split open but the stone is furrowed and pitted like the peach.