MAMIE ROSS
1. Can. Hort. 17:346. 1894. 2. Tex. Sta. Bul. 39:807, 808 fig. 8. 1896. 3. Ga. Sta. Bul. 42:238. 1898. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 33. 1899. 5. Del. Sta. Rpt. 13:104, 105. 1901. 6. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:351. 1903. 7. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 205. 1913.
Mamie Ross seems to have a very good reputation as a table and market peach in Texas and other parts of the South but is hardly worth growing in New York. The fruit has two bad faults: The quality is not high—the flesh being coarse, juicy and insipid in flavor; and the peaches bruise with the least possible handling so that they cannot be shipped to advantage. On the Station grounds the pubescence, too, is so abundant as to be objectionable. Mamie Ross comes at a season when there are many other good mid-season, white-fleshed peaches and may, therefore, be thrown out of the list for this region. It is, as the color-plate shows, a very handsome peach.
Mamie Ross is probably a seedling of Chinese Cling. It originated about 1881 with Captain A. J. Ross, Dallas, Texas. The variety soon attracted attention and neighbors began propagating it. Later, Mr. Ross' brother named the peach after the originator's youngest daughter. In 1899, the American Pomological Society added the variety to its fruit-list.
MAMIE ROSS
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading to somewhat drooping, open-topped, hardy, productive; trunk thick, smooth; branches stocky, smooth, reddish-brown with light ash-gray; branchlets very long, with long internodes, dark red with considerable olive-green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with numerous conspicuous, raised lenticels variable in size.
Leaves six and three-fourths inches long, one and three-fourths inches wide, variable in position, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thick, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth becoming rugose along the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, with none to five small, globose and reniform, reddish-brown glands variable in position.
Flower-buds semi-hardy, obtuse to pointed, plump, heavily pubescent, free or appressed; blossoms open early; flowers one and three-fourths inches across, pink, single; pedicels very short, medium to thick, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish-green at the base, greenish-yellow within, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes acute or obtuse, glabrous within, heavily pubescent without; petals oval to obovate, entire except near the base, tapering to narrow claws often red at the base; filaments one-half inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the base, equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit matures in early mid-season; two and one-half inches long, two and seven-eighths inches wide, roundish-oval to oblong, often bulged on one side, compressed, usually with sides equal; cavity deep, abrupt, often marked with streaks of red; suture variable in depth; apex small, mucronate, set in a slight depression; color pale yellowish-cream, with more or less dull or bright red in which are splashes of darker red; pubescence short, fine, thick; skin thin, tough, separates from the pulp; flesh white, streaked with red near the pit, very juicy, stringy, tender, melting, sweet or somewhat sprightly, pleasantly flavored; good in quality; stone semi-cling or cling, one and five-eighths inches long, one inch wide, ovate to long-elliptical, plump, long-pointed, bulged on one side, with pitted and grooved surfaces; ventral suture deeply grooved along the edges, narrow, winged; dorsal suture grooved.