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the Tarim Basin and the north slopes of the Kunlun Mountains, where it was first domesticated
and cultivated.[3] It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and
others (the glossy-skinned varieties), nectarines.
The specific name persica refers to its widespread cultivation in Persia (modern-day Iran), from
where it was transplanted to Europe. It belongs to the genus Prunus, which includes
the cherry, apricot, almond, and plum, in the rose family. The peach is classified with the almond
in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by the corrugated seed
shell. Due to their close relatedness, the kernel of a peach stone tastes remarkably similar to
almond, and peach stones are often used to make a cheap version of marzipan, known
as persipan.[4]
Peaches and nectarines are the same species, though they are regarded commercially as
different fruits. The skin of nectarines lacks the fuzz (fruit-skin trichomes) that peach skin has; a
mutation in a single gene (MYB25) is thought to be responsible for the difference between the
two.[5][6]
In 2018, China produced 62% of the world total of peaches and nectarines.[7]
It is also found elsewhere in Western Asia in ancient times.[18] Peach cultivation reached Greece
by 300 BC.[14] Alexander the Great is sometimes said to have introduced them into Greece after
conquering Persia,[18] but no historical evidence for this claim has been found.[19] Peaches were,
however, well known to the Romans in the first century AD;[14] the oldest known artistic
representations of the fruit are in two fragments of wall paintings, dated to the first century AD,
in Herculaneum, preserved due to the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD, and now held in the National
Archaeological Museum in Naples.[20] Archaeological finds show that peaches were cultivated
widely in Roman northwestern Continental Europe, but production collapsed around the sixth
century; some revival of production followed with the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th
century.[21]
An article on peach tree cultivation in Spain is brought down in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century
agricultural work, Book on Agriculture.[22] The peach was brought to the Americas by Spanish
explorers in the 16th century, and eventually made it to England and France in the 17th century,
where it was a prized and expensive treat. Horticulturist George Minifie supposedly brought the
first peaches from England to its North American colonies in the early 17th century, planting them
at his estate of Buckland in Virginia.[23] Although Thomas Jefferson had peach trees at Monticello,
American farmers did not begin commercial production until the 19th century in Maryland,
Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and finally Virginia.[citation needed]
The Shanghai honey nectar peach was a key component of both the food culture and agrarian
economy the area where the modern megacity of Shanghai stands. Peaches where the
cornerstone of early Shanghai’s garden culture. As modernization and westernization swept
through the city the Shanghai honey nectar peach nearly disappeared completely. Much of
modern Shanghai is built over these gardens and peach orchards.[24]