The nectarine is a hairless peach. The tree differs in no respect from that of the peach and besides the absence of pubescence the only other distinguishing marks between the fruits are smaller size, firmer flesh, greater aroma and a distinct and richer flavor in nectarines. Even the varieties of the two fruits correspond in characters. Thus, there are clingstone and freestone sorts of each; both may have red, yellow, or white flesh; the flowers of both may be large or small; nectarine leaves, in one variety or another, show all the variations in glands and serrations known to the peach; and the stones and kernels are indistinguishable. There seem to be no records so far, however, of flat or beaked nectarines, abnormalities each represented in several varieties of peaches. The two fruits are adapted to the same soil and climatic conditions and wherever the peach is grown, the world over, the nectarine is found. The established history of the nectarine goes back 2000 years and then merges into that of the peach. Despite the fact that De Candolle[171] "sought in vain for a proof that the nectarine existed in Italy in the time of ancient Rome," we are convinced that Pliny's "duracinus" is the nectarine. Matthiolus[172] in 1554 discusses Pliny's statements concerning the kinds of peaches at length and concludes that the author's "duracinus" is the peach. Dalechamp, in 1587, and J. Bauhin, in 1650, both describe nectarines after which botanists and pomologists invariably include this fruit. In the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries the nectarine was called "nucipersica" because it resembled in smoothness and color of the outer skin as well as in size and shape, the walnut. "Nectarine," the meaning of the word obvious, appears first to have been used for this fruit, in the English language at least, by Parkinson in 1629 who describes six varieties[173] and gives us the information "they have been with us not many years." Gerarde, the great English herbalist, 1597, does not mention them. We find the nectarine first mentioned in America in 1722 by Robert Beverly in his _History of Virginia_, who, after discussing the culture of peaches, nectarines and apricots, says (pages 259, 260): "Peaches and nectarines I believe to be spontaneous, somewhere or other on that continent, for the Indians have, and ever had greater variety, and finer sorts of them than the English."