This variety grew from a seed of Chinese Cling in the orchard of W. P.
Robinson, Atlanta, Georgia, nearly forty years ago. Mr. Robinson first
exhibited it before the Georgia Horticultural Society in 1881 as an
unnamed seedling. Thereafter it was sometimes known locally as Robinson
but commercially it has always been called Chinese Free. In 1891 the
Georgia Horticultural Society formally adopted the latter name. The
American Pomological Society listed Chinese Free on its fruit-list in
1891 but dropped it in 1897. In 1909, however, another change in heart
caused the Society's officials again to list it in the catalog where it
still remains.
Tree above medium in size, vigorous, spreading, the lower
branches slightly drooping, open-topped, neither very hardy
nor very productive; trunk thick; branches stocky, smooth,
reddish-brown tinged with light ash-gray; branchlets slender,
inclined to rebranch, long, dark red intermingled with
olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous large,
conspicuous lenticels raised toward the base.
Leaves five and three-fourths inches long, one and five-eighths
inches wide, folded upward, oval-lanceolate, medium in
thickness and toughness; upper surface dark green, rugose along
the midrib; lower surface dull grayish-green; margin finely
serrate, tipped with dark red glands; petiole three-eighths
inch long, with two to six rather large, reniform,
greenish-yellow, dark-tipped glands variable in position.
Flower-buds usually obtuse, plump, very pubescent, somewhat
appressed; blooming season early; flowers pale pink, darker
along the edges, one and one-fourth inches across, often
in twos; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube dull,
dark reddish-green, light yellow within, obconic, glabrous;
calyx-lobes acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals
oval or ovate, tapering to small, narrow claws tinged with red
at the base; filaments one-half inch long, usually shorter than
the petals; pistil pubescent at the ovary, often longer than
the stamens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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