Persico (The Tree), Persica (The Fruit)

The peach originated in China, came thence to Persia (Iran) and later to the Mediterranean, where it was regarded as a Persian fruit. Its ancestral wild form does not survive, but when the stone of a cultivated peach (pesca) germinates, up springs this ‘wild’ peach and bears its fruit (persica). This is the stock on which cultivated varieties of peach, and sometimes apricots, are grafted in Apulia.

The tree so resembles the almond, P dulcis, that it is difficult to distinguish it except when in flower (dark pink) or fruit.