Tag: apricot

From The Plant Hunters by Alice M. Coats:

“In 1891-3, James Harry Veitch (1868-1907), elder son of the John Gould Veitch who had died [of tuberculosis] so tragically young, made a world tour, starting in November with Ceylon and India. The first part consisted of a stately progress from one botanic or public garden to another, each of which he mercilessly describes down to the very bandstand; he does not seem to have taken one wild flower in his hand for the first six months of his travels…. After visiting Java and Singapore, he sailed in March 1892 from Hong Kong to Yokohama. In Japan he became much more enterprising and emancipated, and had his first experience of collecting in the wild.

“After looking about him in Yokohama and visiting some local gardens, James Veitch went to Tokio, and was somewhat dismayed by the quantity and extent of the local nurseries, more numerous even than those of Flanders or Holland. The cherries were in bloom, and he was greatly impressed by them, especially the famous mile of trees at Mukojima; though he makes the surprising statement that ‘the species is known scientifically as Prunus mume; it is really an Apricot’….”

From “Little Rain” by Elizabeth Madox Roberts in Time for Poetry, compiled by May Hill Arbuthnot:

When I was making myself a game
Up in the garden, a little rain came.

It fell down quick in a sort of rush,
And I crawled back under the snowball bush.

I could hear the big drops hit the ground
And see little puddles of dust fly round.

A chicken came till the rain was gone;
He had just a very few feathers on.

He shivered a little under his skin,
And then he shut his eyeballs in.

Even after the rain had begun to hush
It kept on raining up in the bush.

One big flat drop came sliding down,
And a ladybug that was red and brown

Was up on a little stem waiting there
And I got some rain in my hair.

---

Hello!

The photos below are blossoms from a tree I believe is an apricot tree, though I’ve never been completely sure of my identification. It’s definitely a member of the genus Prunus, which includes a variety of spring-blossoming shrubs and trees whose undifferentiated common names — variations of cherry, plum, apricot, almond, and peach, often modified by “Japanese” or “Chinese” — create a lot of confusion in the plant identification world. Until I learn otherwise, I’m going to stick with calling these flowers apricot tree blossoms — mainly because this tree is unique among many of the blooming fruit trees I find at Oakland Cemetery’s Gardens, and I can typically identify cherry, plum, and peach blossoms on other similar trees.

It’s only partly apparent from my photographs, but the tree’s branches — unlike typical upright flowering fruit trees or shrubs — hang almost like vines from a central trunk structure that’s about fifteen feet high. It may have been cultivated to grow this way — shaped over the years to be reminiscent of some bonsai — and its general “design” reminds me of a fleur-de-lis waterfall or fountain or a sparse version of a weeping willow. The individual branches are thin and pliable, waving to match the wind flow of even the slightest breeze. And, as it happens, there are variations of apricot and cherry trees called weeping apricots or weeping cherry trees whose appearance is very similar.

The flower clusters at this stage were quite small, and I didn’t realize at first that I had a ladybug posing in some of the photos. The first five shots below show the ladybug’s travels along one of the blossoms, just before I got a little too close and it opened its wings and twizzled away.

Thanks for taking a look!

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

From Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History by Diana Wells:

“The apricot’s botanical name is Prunus armeniaca, which means ‘plum from Armenia,’ but apricots originated in China, where they were cultivated from ancient times for their blossoms, fruits, and kernels. They most likely traveled to the Middle East, along with other Chinese commodities such as silk… and Alexander the Great might have brought them home.

“The ancient world was familiar with apricots; their common name probably comes from the Arabic al-barquq. When they were grown in Spain by the Moors their Spanish name became albaricoque. But apricots ripen early, and some etymologists suggest that their name perhaps comes from the Latin praecox (‘early’) and apricus (‘ripe’).”

From “A Garden Song” by Austin Dobson in The Writer in the Garden, edited by Jane Garmey:

All the seasons run their race
In this quiet resting-place;
Peach, and apricot, and fig
Here will ripen, and grow big;
Here is store and overplus —
More had not Alcinous!

From The American Gardener by William Cobbett:

“In England the kitchen-gardens of gentlemen are enclosed with walls from ten to sixteen feet high; but this, though it is useful; and indeed necessary, in the way of protection against two-legged intruders, is intended chiefly to afford the means of raising the fruit of Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, and Vines, which cannot, in England, be brought to perfection without walls to train them against; for, though the trees will all grow very well, and though a small sort of Apricots will sometimes ripen their fruit away from a wall, these fruits cannot, to any extent, be obtained, in England, nor the Peaches and Nectarines, even in France, north of the middle of that country, without the aid of walls….

“Hence, in England, Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, and Grapes, are called Wall-Fruit. Cherries, Plums, and Pears, are also very frequently placed against walls; and they are always the finer for it; but, a wall is indispensably necessary to the four former.”

---

Hello!

As far as I know, I had not previously photographed these blossoms before, on a tree that PlantNet tells me is an apricot tree. While it’s a very useful resource, it’s always a bit speculative to rely on PlantNet (or any other internet source) as a way to identify unfamiliar foliage — simply because so many flowers look like so many other flowers (especially in the early spring!), and naming conventions can be very confusing. There is an approximately equal chance that these are the blossoms of a wild cherry tree or almond tree — though after a while (a long while, of comparing random other-people’s images), I convinced myself that it was most likely an apricot. There was only one tree with blossoms like this that I could find at the gardens — and I could identify the cherry and almond trees — so that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!

Thanks for taking a look!

---

---

---

---

---

---

---