The origin of Gold Drop is unknown. It is evidently an old sort and some horticulturists believe it to be an old variety renamed. The variety has been cultivated in Michigan orchards for many years under the name Golden Drop given it by George W. Griffin, Casco, Allegan County, Michigan, who introduced it. The variety was at one time supposed to be the peach which is grown in Michigan as Yellow Rareripe but it is not the Yellow Rareripe cultivated today. The American Pomological Society listed it in its fruit-catalog in 1909 under the name Gold Drop. [Illustration: GOLD DROP] Tree of medium size and vigor, spreading, rather open-topped, hardy, very productive; trunk thick and smooth; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown with a covering of light ash-gray; branchlets slender, with internodes dull pinkish-red intermingled with green, smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, raised lenticels. Leaves five and one-half inches long, one and one-fourth inches wide, folded upward and recurved, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark green, mottled; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with red along the edge; petiole three-eighths inch long, with two to nine large, reddish-brown or grayish, mixed glands usually on the leaf. Flower-buds long, conical or obtuse, plump, somewhat appressed, pubescent; season of bloom early; flowers pale pink, one and three-fourths inches across, well distributed; pedicels short, medium to slender, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes broad, usually acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals ovate, notched near the base, tapering to long, narrow claws variable in color at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the ovary, equal to or longer than the stamens. Fruit matures late; two and seven-sixteenths inches long, nearly two and one-half inches wide, roundish-oval, bulged at one side, with unequal halves; cavity deep, abrupt, twig-marked; suture very shallow, extending beyond the apex; apex roundish, with a slightly mamelon or mucronate tip; color greenish or golden-yellow, with a dull blush on one side; pubescence thick, coarse; skin adhering to the pulp; flesh pale yellow to the pit, variable in juiciness, pleasantly sprightly; good in quality; stone free, one and nine-sixteenths inches long, one and one-sixteenth inches wide, broadly ovate, bulged at one side, with a pointed apex and deeply grooved surfaces; ventral suture deeply grooved at the sides, rather narrow; dorsal suture with a deep groove, wing-like. GOVERNOR HOGG =1.= Brown Bros. _Cat._ 27. 1906. =2.= _Ga. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 65, 66. 1907. =3.= _Am. Pom. Soc. Cat._ 37. 1909. =4.= _N. J. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 37. 1912. =5.= Waugh _Am. Peach Orch._ 202. 1913.