2. The red Peach tree is likewise a tree of no great bignesse; it also
sendeth forth divers boughes or branches which be very brittle. The
leaves be long, and nicked in the edges like to the precedent. The
floures be also like unto the former; the fruit or Peaches be round,
and of a red colour on the outside; the meate likewise about the stone
is of a gallant red colour. These kindes of Peaches are very like to
wine in taste, and therefore marvellous pleasant.
3. _Persica praecocia_, or the d'avant Peach tree is like unto the
former, but his leaves are greater and larger. The fruit or Peaches be
of a russet colour on the one side, and on the other side next unto the
Sun of a red colour, but much greater than the red Peach: the stones
whereof are like unto the former: the pulpe or meate within is of a
golden yellow colour, and of a pleasant taste.
4. _Persica lutea_, or the yellow Peach tree is like unto the former
in leaves and flours, his fruit is of a yellow color on the out side,
and likewise on the in side, harder than the rest: in the middle of the
Peach is a wooddy hard and rough stone full of crests and gutters, in
which doth ly a kernel much like to that of the almond, and with such a
like skin: the substance within is white, and of taste somewhat bitter.
The fruit hereof is of greatest pleasure, and of best taste of all the
other of his kinde; although there be found at this day divers other
sorts that are of very good taste, not remembered of the ancient, or
set down by the later Writers, whereof to speake particularly would not
bee great to our pretended purpose, considering wee hasten to an end.
5. There is also kept in some of our choice gardens a kind of Peach
which hath a very double and beautifull floure, but it is seldom
succeeded by any fruit: they call this _Persica flore pleno_, The
double blossomed Peach."
In the first edition Gerarde describes but four peaches, but Johnson,
36 years later, says "there are divers sorts besides the foure here
set forth by our Author" and then names thirteen "choice ones, such as
are to be had from my friend Miller in Old-street," who "hath also"
six varieties "of that kinde of Peach which some call _Nucipersia_
or _Nectorins_." Either Gerarde neglects the peach or varieties
increased greatly in 36 years--probably the former. We have not found
the nectarine mentioned before Johnson's revision of Gerarde in 1633
and probably this fruit was not well known in England long before,
for Parkinson, discussing them in 1629, says "they have been with us
not many years." This brings us to Parkinson's list of peaches, which
contains, as Johnson says, a "fuller discourse," than Gerarde. John
Parkinson (1567-1650), another British herbalist, who also cultivated a
famous garden in London, devotes a chapter to the peach and another to
the nectarine. These being short, and every word pertinent, we publish
them in full:[92]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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