Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/157

 CHAPTER XIII.

THE PEACH AND ITS LEGENDS.

The peach-gardens of China are a fair sight in all the glory of their springtide bloom, when the trees are laden with blossoms of delicate pink and white and the air sweetened with their rich fragrance. The Chinese, in celebrating their admiration for flowers, give a high place to the blossoms of fruit, which English poets appear generally rather to ignore. Bouquets in English houses do not include these beautiful specimens of nature, which are so favourite an ornament in the libraries and reception-rooms of well-to-do Chinese. The peach is held in special honour in the so-called Flowery Land, and much attention is paid to its cultivation. There are three sorts of peach-trees grown in China—the dwarf, the shrub, and the full-sized tree. Of these the dwarf-peach is perhaps the most highly prized in point of beauty and perfume. It is remarkable for the size, wealth, and colour of its blossoms, and is divided by Chinese florists into eighteen different species. It does not fructify, and is valued only for its peculiarity of form and the rich fragrance of its flowers. The shrub-peach grows to the height of four or five feet, and is much found in the imperial gardens, where it is placed, with that true eye to effect characteristic of the Chinese, on the margins of pools and the K