Yellow Spanish is so old and so widely disseminated that its origin can
only be conjectured. From the name we naturally infer a Spanish nativity
and yet it is almost equally well known as Bigarreau, a word of French
derivation. Under the last name French pomologists believe that they
trace its history to the First Century of the Christian Era as the
variety described by Pliny under the name Cerasum Duracinum. The Germans
and Austrians certainly knew this variety in the Eighteenth Century and
probably much earlier, an inference to be drawn from the references
given. Parkinson, the English herbalist, described a cherry in 1629
which he called the Biguarre Cherrie which later came to be known as the
Bigarreau or Graffion by English writers and which we now know to be
Yellow Spanish. Seven years later Gerarde described a Spanish cherry the
description of which is not unlike our Yellow Spanish. Miller and
Forsyth, English writers, also at an early date described a Spanish
cherry which may be the fruit of this discussion.
Fortunately we are well informed as to the history of Yellow Spanish in
America. Prince, one of the most accurate of American pomologists, in
1832, gave the following historical account of the Graffion, or Yellow
Spanish: "This tree was imported from London by the father of the
author, in the year 1802, under the name Yellow Spanish, and one of the
original trees is now growing in his garden, where it produces
abundantly, and there is little doubt that from his stock have
originated most of the trees of this kind now in our country, as he has
taken much pains to recommend it." Why Prince and other Americans came
to call the variety introduced by the elder Prince of Europe as Yellow
Spanish, as Bigarreau and Graffion, does not appear unless the younger
Prince wanted to make the name in this country conform to that in most
common usage in England at the time. Besides the names already given,
Yellow Spanish has been rather widely grown in America as Ox Heart and
White Caroon. This variety was placed on the recommended list of the
National Congress of Fruit Growers, which afterwards became the American
Pomological Society, in 1848, under the name Bigarreau. The name was
changed in 1897 to Yellow Spanish and it now appears on the list of that
organization as Spanish.
[Illustration: YELLOW SPANISH]
Tree very large and vigorous, upright-spreading, rather
open-topped, productive; trunk thick, of medium smoothness;
branches stocky, reddish-brown covered with ash-gray, smooth
except for the numerous large lenticels; branchlets short, brown
nearly overspread with ash-gray, smooth, with small, slightly
raised, inconspicuous lenticels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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