Berenice originated some thirty or more years ago with the late Dr. L. E. Berckmans of Augusta, Georgia. It is supposed to have sprung from the pit of a General Lee tree which grew in one of Mr. Berckmans' test orchards. In the Berckmans nursery catalog it is stated of Berenice that after thirty years' trial "there is nothing equal to it in the same season."
BERENICE
Tree large, vigorous, spreading, open-topped, hardy, medium to productive; trunk stocky; branches thick, smooth, reddish-brown mingled with light ash-gray; branchlets with short internodes, dark red overlaid with olive-green, smooth, glabrous, with numerous large and small lenticels raised at the base.
Leaves six inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, folded upward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, leathery; upper surface dark green, smooth; lower surface light grayish-green; margin coarsely serrate, tipped with dark glands; petiole one-fourth inch long, with two to ten large, reniform, yellowish-green glands variable in position.
Flower-buds large, oblong, slightly pointed, heavily pubescent, usually appressed; blossoms appear in mid-season; flowers one and three-sixteenths inches across, pale pink, tinged darker along the edges, well distributed; pedicels short, glabrous, green; calyx-tube red mingled with dull, dark green, orange-colored within, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes often broad, acute to obtuse, glabrous within, slightly pubescent or heavily pubescent without; petals round-ovate, broadly notched, tapering to short claws red at base; filaments three-eighths inch long, shorter than the petals; pistil pubescent at the ovary, longer than the stamens.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and five-eighths inches long, two and one-half inches wide, round-oval, with halves often unequal; cavity deep, medium to wide, contracted around the sides, with tender skin, often blushed with red; suture shallow, deepening toward the apex; apex roundish or depressed, with a mucronate or mamelon tip; color greenish-yellow, blushed and splashed with red; pubescence short, medium fine; skin tough, separates from the pulp; flesh yellow, faintly tinted with red near the pit, stringy, tender and melting, sweet, mild, pleasant flavored; good in quality; stone nearly free, one and three-eighths inches long, fifteen-sixteenths inch wide, oval, plump, drawn out at the ends, usually with pitted surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed along the edges; dorsal suture deeply grooved, with sides slightly wing-like.
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