National Geographic Magazine/Volume 31/Number 6/Our State Flowers/The Peach Blossom

The Peach Blossom (Amygdalus persica L.)


Who that has wandered through a full-blown peach orchard, inhaling the fragrance of a million buds and feasting the eye upon acres of heavenly pink, can fail to applaud Delaware's choice of the peach blossom as her State flower.

A deep claim has the peach upon national admiration as well as upon local affection, for it ranks second among all the inhabitants of the American orchard in the money value of its annual crop of fruit. It yields about two bushels for every family in the land, and the product ranges from the delicious Elberta to the small, neglected cling-stone of the wayside volunteer tree.

Of ancient lineage is the peach. Indeed, so far back can it be traced that its origin is lost in the mazes of Chinese tradition. Travelers from Persia saw it in China, loved it, and carried it home with them. Here they gave it firm root and endowed it with the name it bears. Thence it traveled westward, a sort of pacemaker for the Star of Empire. The Romans in the days of Claudius brought it to Italy's shores and thence carried it to Britain. By the time of the discovery of America it had made all Europe its friend and was ready to join the pioneers in shipping for America.

Before the War of 1812 it had crossed the Mississippi and was found as far west as Arkansas. In those days there were many hardy varieties, and where they once gained a foothold they maintained it without human aid. To this day one may journey through the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains and see gnarled and knotty old trees, which must have outlived several generations of men, still bearing their small but delicious cling-stone fruit.

Source: —, ed. (June 1917), “Our State Flowers: The Floral Emblems Chosen by the Commonwealths”, The National Geographic Magazine 31(6): 494. (Illustration from page 507.)