Page:The British Fruit-Gardener.djvu/16

 The trees generally assume but a moderate growth, obtaining from fifteen to twenty feet stature, dividing regularly into many branches, and emitting numerous straight shoots annually; the whole forming a large full head, adorned with long spear-shaped leaves, and paler red flowers, having five petals, producing flowers and fruit, mostly on young wood of a year or two old, immediately from the eyes of the shoot.

They flower early in Spring, before the leaves; arising in a vast profusion all along the young branches at almost every eye, succeeded by large oval downy fruit, consisting of a thick tough pulp, including an oblong nut or stone, containing one kernel, which is the Al-