Peach Tree

Description:

Trees 3–8 m tall, with a broad and ± horizontally spreading crown. Bark dark reddish brown, scabrous and squamose with age. Branchlets green but reddish on exposed side, slender, glabrous, lustrous, with many small lenticels. Winter buds often 2 or 3 in a fascicle, conical, pubescent, apex obtuse. Petiole robust, 1–2 cm, with or without 1 to several nectaries; leaf blade oblong-lanceolate, elliptic-lanceolate, or obovate-oblanceolate, 7–15 × 2–3.5 cm, abaxially with or without a few hairs in vein axils, adaxially glabrous, base broadly cuneate, margin finely to coarsely serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary, opening before leaves, 2–3.5 cm in diam. Pedicel very short to flower subsessile. Hypanthium green with a red tinge, shortly campanulate, 3–5 mm, outside pubescent or rarely subglabrous. Sepals ovate to oblong, ± as long as hypanthium, outside pubescent to rarely subglabrous, apex obtuse. Petals pink or white, oblong-elliptic to broadly obovate, 1–1.7 × 0.9–1.2 cm. Stamens 20–30; anthers purplish red. Ovary pubescent. Style nearly as long as stamens. Drupe color varies from greenish white to orangish yellow, usually with a red tinge on exposed side, ovoid, broadly ellipsoid, or compressed globose, (3–)5–7(–12) cm in diam. and usually nearly as long, densely pubescent, very rarely glabrous, ventral suture conspicuous; mesocarp white, greenish white, yellow, orangish yellow, or red, succulent, sweet to sour-sweet, fragrant; endocarp large, ellipsoid to suborbicular, compressed on both sides, surface longitudinally and transversely furrowed and pitted, free from mesocarp or compactly adnate to it, apex acuminate. Seed bitter, rarely sweet. Fl. Mar–Apr, fr. Aug–Sep.

Habitat:

The peach, Prunus persica, is a deciduous tree, native to China and South Asia, where it was first cultivated. I believe this particular specimen grew from a discarded peach or nectarine pit.

Notes:

Spotted in wooded ravine behind and between warehouses in Kennesaw, GA this is a very "busy" area with many species of birds interacting. While I was taking pictures of this tree and one beside it, I found that I was practically standing on a nest full of baby bunnies!