Botanical history of peach

China is the hometown of peach trees. Around the tenth century BC, there was a saying in the Book of Songs Feng Wei that "there are peaches in the garden, which is really confusing". "Feng Wei" refers to the cultivation of peaches in the gardens north of the Yellow River and in the vast areas of Shanxi today. It is naturally cultivated artificially, indicating that there has been a certain planting scale. Other ancient books, such as Guanzi, Shangshu, Han Feizi, Shan Hai Jing, Shilu Chunqiu, etc., all have records about peach trees, indicating that peach trees have spread all over the Yellow River valley in ancient times. The Book of Rites also said that peach was listed as one of the five fruits (plum, plum, apricot and jujube) sacrificed to the gods at that time.

Modern archaeologists in China discovered the wild peach pit 6,700 years ago at the Neolithic site in Hemudu, Zhejiang. A large number of wild peach stones have also been unearthed at Erligang site in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. Especially in the Shang Dynasty site of Taixi Village, Gaocheng County, Hebei Province, two peach stones and six peach kernels with complete appearance were unearthed. The peach pit is oval, with the length and width of 1.6× 1 and 2× 1.2 cm, dark brown, hard wood, wrinkles and holes on the surface, longitudinal grooves on both sides, sharp top, oblate base and center. Peach kernel is off-white, oval or oblong, usually 10- 15 mm, 8- 12 mm wide, with thin edges on both sides, blunt top and flat oval cross section. The seed coat is thin, and yellow-white seeds appear after crushing. After identification, it is exactly the same as the peach cultivated today. Unearthed cultural relics confirm ancient records and prove that China is the birthplace of peach trees, which have been used and planted for a long time.

After the 2nd century BC, the peach trees cultivated by China people spread westward from Gansu and Xinjiang via Central Asia to Persia, then to Greece, Rome, Mediterranean countries, and then to France, Germany, Spain and Portugal. But it was not until the ninth century that peach trees were gradually planted in Europe. /kloc-After the 5th century, peach trees from China were introduced to Britain.

Indian peach trees were also introduced from China. In 630 A.D., Tang Xuanzang wrote a legend about peach trees being introduced into India: In A.D. 1 century, when the well-known King of Skeeter, Jia Jiasejia, was in power, merchants from various tribes in China and Gansu often went to India, bringing exquisite silk products and various precious fruits, including peaches. King Katsumseka gave his guests a grand reception. China grows peach stones and other stones there. A few years later, peach trees flourished in India and were praised by the Indian people. The place where China people live is named "to that servant's land", which means "China's land"; Peach was named "zhina Fruit", which means "China Fruit". This story is still widely circulated in India.

After Columbus discovered the New World, peach trees entered America with European immigrants. However, because peach varieties are not adapted to the local climate, peach trees bloom more and bear less fruits, which greatly restricts their development. It was not until the beginning of19th century that gardeners introduced a walnut variety called "Alberta" from Europe that peach trees spread in North and South America. At the beginning of the 20th century, American gardeners introduced more than 450 fine peach varieties from China, and in just over ten years, they selected fine varieties suitable for subtropical climate, making the United States one of the largest peach fruit producers in the world.

The history of planting peach trees in Japan is relatively short. 1876, Japanese Okayama Garden introduced peach saplings from China, Shanghai and Tianjin. 1878, Yoshio Yamauchi of Gucun (now Okayama City) in Yujin County selected two peach tree seedlings and carefully cultivated them. Three years later, 1 1 peach fruit was produced, which was the first generation fruit of China peach in Japan. Because the climate here is suitable, peach trees grow well and the fruit quality is excellent, and the peach planting industry develops rapidly. Horticulturists have cultivated more than 40 excellent varieties. Okayama Prefecture is full of mountains and plains, and peach trees have become a famous peach town in Japan. Peach blossoms are designated as county flowers, and the peaches produced are exported to Osaka, Kobe, Tokyo and other big cities. Several improved "Okayama White" peaches have been naturalized in China and become excellent varieties with good taste, fragrance and quality, both fresh and canned.

The fact that ancient unearthed cultural relics and peach trees spread confirmed that China is the hometown of peach trees. However, for a long time in the past, due to the lack of archaeological data and in-depth research, some western scholars just made the conclusion that "peach trees originated in Persia and spread to Europe from there" based on linguistic reasoning and the conjecture that "China has never seen wild peach trees". Therefore, the peach was named persic, which means "Persian fruit". The Latin scientific name of peach tree also comes from this. What's more, in the past, there was an extremely wrong so-called "China culture came from the West", which just indiscriminately described peach trees originating in China as being introduced from Persia in ancient times. Peach trees have been wronged for hundreds of years.

After careful textual research, the famous botanist Dikandor pointed out in his book Textual Research on Agronomic Plants: "There are peach trees in China, and there were peach trees in Greek, Roman and Sanskrit peoples more than a thousand years ago." He also said: China's road to the West City was opened long ago, so it is possible for peach stones to cross the mountains and spread to Kashmir, without thorns and Persia. Presumably, it should be between the Sanskrit migration and the Persian-Greek traffic return era. Darwin, the founder of the theory of evolution, further pointed out, "According to the fact that peach didn't come from Persia in an earlier period, because it didn't have an authentic Sanskrit name or Hebrew name, it was believed that it was not native to West Asia, but came from China. Darwin also studied the fertility characteristics of China peach, double-petal peach and flat peach, and compared them with those of Britain and France. He thought that all European peaches originated from the blood of China peach. The conclusion that peach trees originated in China has been unanimously recognized by scholars all over the world.

The earliest ancient book in China that recorded peach varieties was Erya Cao Shi in the tenth century BC: "Luo (sound spear), winter peach; Hey (sound four), mountain peach. " "Miscellanies of Xijing" records that in the first century BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty built a "Bamboo Garden" in Beijing. Among the different fruits contributed by officials, there are Qin Tao, Fangtao, Barnyard Walnut, Jincheng Peach, Qiti Peach, Chai Wentao, Frost Peach and other peach varieties. In the third century, Guo added "winter peach, autumn peach, fragrant peach and red peach". With the continuous improvement of grafting and cultivation techniques, peach varieties are varied and dazzling. In the 6th century AD, there were nearly 20 peach varieties recorded in Qi Shu, more than 30 in Luoyang in Song Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, and more than 40 peach varieties recorded by Wang in Qunfangpu in Ming Dynasty. Nowadays, "peaches and plums are all over the world." Peach trees are planted in nearly 100 countries all over the world. The country that produces the most peaches is China, followed by the United States, Japan and Italy. Thanks to the long planting history and vast planting area, the industrious and intelligent working people in China have cultivated colorful peach trees, which are spread all over the country from Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the south to Jilin in the north. According to statistics, there are thousands of peach varieties originating in China.