YELLOW RARERIPE
1. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 102. 1831. 2. Kenrick Am. Orch. 229. 1832. 3. Prince Pom. Man. 2:14, 15. 1832. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 493. 1845. 5. Elliott Fr. Book 280. 1854. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 80. 1862. 7. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:229. 1899. 8. Fulton Peach Cult. 193, 194. 1908.
Marie Antoinette. 9. Kenrick Am. Orch. 187. 1846.
Early Orange Peach. 10. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 187. 1846.
Cutter's Yellow. 11. Hovey Fr. Am. 2:59, 60, Pl. 1851.
Rareripe Jaune. 12. Mas Le Verger 7:215, 216, fig. 106. 1866-73.
A century ago Yellow Rareripe was at the head of the list of yellow-fleshed, freestone peaches—largest, handsomest, hardiest and best-flavored of all. Even now in fruit- and tree-characters, with the single exception of productiveness, Yellow Rareripe holds its own very well with the peaches of its type and season. A glance at the color-plate shows the peach to be as attractive as any in color and shape; the size is above the average and in texture and flavor it is not often surpassed. Its fault is unproductiveness, to make up for which the trees usually bear regularly and come in bearing early. The variety is now hardly worth planting commercially in New York, being equalled by several yellow-fleshed peaches in all characters and surpassed in productiveness by many, but, if the trees can be obtained, it might find a welcome place in home orchards. Yellow Rareripe seems still to have all of the vigor and vitality of the first trees, helping thereby to furnish evidence that varieties do not run out.
This is another American peach the origin of which is involved in so much uncertainty that it is impossible to state where, when and by whom produced. Prince claims to have discovered the original Yellow Rareripe tree near Flushing, New York, over a hundred years ago. It was being grown in the vicinity of Boston early in the Nineteenth Century where it seems to have been first introduced by William Kenrick, Newton, Massachusetts, under the name Yellow Red Rareripe. Occasionally another and inferior peach, Yellow Melocoton, was substituted for Yellow Rareripe. Hovey received peach-trees from Kenrick under the name Cutter's Yellow which later proved to be Yellow Rareripe. Hovey retained the name Cutter's Yellow, because it was briefer. The Marie Antoinette, mentioned by Kenrick in 1841, is without question Yellow Rareripe and has been listed as synonymous by several authors. Yellow Rareripe was placed in the American Pomological Society's fruit-catalog in 1862 where it has since remained as a recommended variety.
YELLOW RARERIPE
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, rather unproductive; trunk stocky; branches thick, smooth, reddish-brown mingled with light ash-gray; branchlets with internodes of medium length, dark pinkish-red tinged with pale green, glossy, smooth, glabrous, with conspicuous, numerous, large, raised lenticels.
Leaves six and three-fourths inches long, one and three-fourths inches wide, folded upward and curled downward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dull, dark olive-green, smooth becoming rugose near the midrib; lower surface grayish-green; margin finely serrate and sometimes in two series, tipped with reddish-brown glands; petiole three-eighths inch long, glandless or with one to four small, globose glands variable in color and position.
Flower-buds conical or pointed, pubescent, plump, usually appressed; blossoms open in mid-season; flowers seven-eighths inch across, light pink but darker along the edges, usually single; pedicels short, green; calyx-tube reddish-green, orange-colored within, campanulate; calyx-lobes narrow, acute, glabrous within, pubescent without; petals oval to ovate, shallowly and widely notched towards the base, tapering to claws red at the base; filaments three-eighths inch long, equal to the petals in length; pistil as long as the stamens.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and one-fourth inches long, two and three-sixteenths inches wide, round-conic to round-cordate, compressed, with unequal halves; cavity contracted and wrinkled about the sides, abrupt or flaring; suture shallow; apex round or somewhat pointed, with a mucronate or mamelon tip; color orange-yellow, with a deep red blush, splashed and mottled with red; pubescence thick, long, coarse; skin thin, tender, variable in adherence to the pulp; flesh yellow, tinged with red near the pit, juicy, fine-grained, tender and melting, sweet, pleasantly flavored; good to very good in quality; stone free, one and one-fourth inches long, seven-eighths inch wide, oval to ovate, bulged near the apex, plump, tapering to a short point, with grooved and pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply grooved along the edges, furrowed; dorsal suture grooved, winging.
CHAPTER VI
THE MINOR VARIETIES OF PEACHES
À Bec. 1. Jour. Hort. N. S. 3:370. 1862. 2. Hogg Fruit Man. 212. 1866. 3. Pom. France 6:No. II, Pl. II. 1869.
Mignonne à bec. 4. Mas Le Verger 7:37, 38, fig. 17. 1866-73.
Pourprée à bec. 5. Mas Pom. Gen. 12:186. 1883.
Schnabel Pfirsich. 6. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 414. 1889.