BLOOD CLING
1. Bridgeman Gard. Ass't Pt. 3:109. 1857. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 21. 1897. 3. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 199. 1913.
Blood Clingstone. 4. Prince Treat. Fr. Trees 17. 1820. 5. Floy Am. Fruits 411. 1825. 6. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 493, 494. 1845. 7. Ibid. 601. 1869. 8. Fulton Peach Cult. 201. 1908.
Blood Peach. 9. Kenrick Am. Orch. 197. 1841.
Indian Blood Cling. 10. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 18. 1871.
Indian Blood. 11. Ga. Sta. Bul. 42:237. 1898.
Blood Cling is the favorite curiosity of the peach-orchard and as such we accord it a color-plate and a full description in The Peaches of New York. Unfortunately, the beet-red color of the flesh could not be reproduced with sufficient accuracy to make the attempt satisfactory. It is a pleasant peach to eat out of hand and is much used for pickling and preserving, for which purposes it has real merit. The round-headed, compact tree might make the variety a desirable parent in breeding new peaches.
This peach is an American seedling raised many years ago from the Blood Clingstone of the French. The fruit is much larger than that of the parent sort but otherwise is much the same. The Blood Free raised by John M. Ives of Salem, Massachusetts, while somewhat of the nature of Blood Cling, is, nevertheless, a different sort. The American Pomological Society listed Blood Cling in its catalog in 1871 under the name Indian Blood Cling. In 1897 this name was changed to Blood Cling.
BLOOD CLING
Tree large, vigorous, round, compact, hardy, unproductive; trunk thick; branches stocky, reddish-bronze, with a light ash-gray tinge; branchlets slender, long, with short internodes, olive-green overlaid with dark red, smooth, glabrous, with numerous usually small, inconspicuous lenticels.
Leaves five and three-fourths inches long, one and one-half inches wide, folded upward, oval-lanceolate; leaves thin, somewhat leathery; upper surface dark green, varying from smooth to rugose; lower surface light grayish-green; margin finely serrate, with dark brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with two to five reniform, light or dark green glands variable in position.
Flower-buds large, long, plump, oblong-conic, pubescent, free; flowers open in mid-season; blossoms pink, one and three-eighths inches across; pedicels short, glabrous, pale green; calyx-tube dull, speckled, greenish-red, light greenish-yellow within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes long, narrow, acute, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals oval to ovate, crenate near the base, tapering to short, narrow claws white at the base; filaments three-eighths inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent, seven-sixteenths inch long, equal to or shorter than the stamens.
Fruit matures very late; one and three-fourths inches long, one and seven-eighths inches thick, compressed, with unequal halves often giving a lopsided appearance; cavity narrow, abrupt, usually white; suture shallow; apex round, with a mucronate tip; color dull greenish-white, entirely overspread with dingy pink mingled with splashes and stripes of darker, clouded red, mottled; pubescence long, coarse; skin tough, adherent to the pulp; flesh red, becoming lighter colored next the stone, juicy, coarse, stringy, tough and meaty, brisk, pleasantly flavored; fair in quality; stone clinging, one and one-fourth inches long, seven-eighths inch wide, oval to slightly obovate, short-pointed, strongly bulged near the apex, with grooved and pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed at the sides, narrow; dorsal suture deep, medium in width.