PEENTO
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 41. 1877. 2. Gard. Mon. 19:114, 301. 1877. 3. Gard. Mon. 26:61. 1884. 4. U. S. D. A. Rpt. 650. 1887. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 32. 1889. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 114-116. 1889. 7. Fla. Sta. Bul. 62:506-509, Pl. 1. 1902. 8. Fulton Peach Cult. 202. 1908.
Chinese Flat. 9. Prince Treat. Hort. 16, 17. 1828. 10. Kenrick Am. Orch. 225, 226. 1832.
Flat Peach of China. 11. Lindley Guide Orch. 247, 248. 1831. 12. Horticulturist 1:383, 384, fig. 92. 1846-47. 13. Fla. Sta. Bul. 62:512, 513. 1902.
Platt Pfirsich. 14. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 410. 1889.
For the history and a discussion of the horticultural characters of Peento, the reader is referred to page 108. The variety is too tender to cold to be grown in New York; in fact it succeeds only in Florida and the warmest parts of the other Gulf States. The American Pomological Society listed Peento in its fruit-catalog in 1889. The following description, as it applies to the tree, has been compiled:
PEENTO
[Reproduced from Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London IV: 512. 1822.]
Tree vigorous, open-topped, too tender for the North, variable in productiveness; leaves mature late, four and one-half inches long, one and seven-sixteenths inches wide, oblong-oval, thin, leathery; upper surface light olive-green, smooth; lower surface grayish-green; margin coarsely serrate, tipped with dark glands; petiole with two or three reniform glands of medium size, gray or greenish-yellow, usually at the base.
Fruit matures early; one and three-eighths inches long, two and seven-sixteenths inches wide, strongly oblate; cavity shallow, very wide, flaring, twig-marked; suture deep, wide, extending two-thirds around the fruit; apex depressed, set in a large, wide, flaring basin; color creamy-yellow, mottled and delicately pencilled with red, often blushed toward the apex; pubescence short, thick; skin thick, tough, nearly free; flesh white, stained red at the stone, juicy, stringy, tender and melting, sweet, mild, with an almond-like flavor; very good in quality; stone clings, red, one-half inch long, fifteen-sixteenths inch wide, strongly oblate, with corrugated surfaces; ventral suture very deep at the edges, narrow at the base, becoming wide at the apex; dorsal suture a wide, deep groove, merging into a line at the apex.