Seven pubescent-fruited species of Prunus are found in the Southwestern States. From reading the descriptions, it is hard to tell whether these plants, unique in more than one respect, are most closely related to peaches, plums, apricots or almonds. Professor S. C. Mason of the United States Department of Agriculture, who has studied these fruits,[181] thinks that some if not all of them may have horticultural value, at least in the Southwest where fluctuations of heat and cold are great and drought and alkalinity of soil must be endured by plant-life. They deserve brief mention in _The Peaches of New York_ because of the possibility that some of them can be used as dwarfing-stocks for the peach and possibly that some may be hybridized with cultivated peaches. The species, with brief notes taken for most part from Mason, are as follows: _Prunus texana_ Dietrich, the "wild peach" of Texas, is a plum-like fruit from eastern Texas of which there are already several hybrids with the wild plums of the region. _Prunus andersonii_ Gray is the "wild almond" or "wild peach" of Nevada. The species is found in western Nevada and eastern California in a region subject to severe cold in winter and extreme drought and heat in summer. One cultivator of this species suggests it as a good stock for the peach and the almond and thinks it has possibilities for hybridization.[182] The "desert apricot," _Prunus eriogyna_ Mason, comes from a very restricted region in southern California. The characters of this species should fit it to endure the environment on the desert slopes of mountains. The "desert almond," _Prunus fasciculata_ Torrey, sometimes called "wild peach" and "wild almond," ranges much farther south and east than _Prunus andersonii_ in southern Nevada and southern California, crossing into southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, and grows in gravels and sands where its roots penetrate to great depth. _Prunus minutiflora_ Engelman, the "Texas almond," is found in southwestern Texas, a shrub which, like the former species and the one following, is dioecious, a marked and unique peculiarity of these three species. The "Mexican almond," _Prunus microphylla_ Hemsley, is found in the high mountain region of Mexico. _Prunus havardii_ Wight, is known only in a restricted region in western Texas. The last two species are so little known that one cannot even surmise whether they may have horticultural possibilities. HORTICULTURAL CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE PEACH