Mystery bush - please help

Discussion in 'Plants: Identification' started by Bob Stone, Aug 29, 2004.

  1. Bob Stone

    Bob Stone Member

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    Location:
    lower mainland of BC
    Bush came with new house 12 years ago. Now is about 12 feet high, pruned annually or would be taller, has fruit fuzzy and peach colored with stone inside. Fruit about size of an apricot. Any ideas on what this is?
     

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  2. jimmyq

    jimmyq Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Location:
    Metro Vancouver, BC, Canada.
    uhm. an apricot?
     
  3. Yes, it's Prunus armeniaca.
     
  4. Bob Stone

    Bob Stone Member

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    Location:
    lower mainland of BC
    Do apricots grow in a shrub form?

    Thanks for the suggestion. that is what we suspected also but the plant is a shrub beside the front steps. It also has thorns on it which seem not like true thorns but are similar, they seem to be tough remnants of very small branches that "die" in the shade of the bush along major branches and they can poke a scratch in your hand easily if you don't watch out.

    I must admit it is an agressive shrub and I prune it accordingly every year. Maybe the builder put in a tree in the wrong spot beside my front steps.

    This (hot) year was the first time we saw fruit and there was quite a bit.

    Also the fuzzy skin is peach like, we thought apricots were smooth skinned.
     
  5. Fruits of Prunus armeniaca are lightly fuzzy. P. armeniaca var. ansu has hairier fruits. But I think yours may have come from a discarded P. armeniaca pit. Without training up into a tree form or with hard pruning that prevented the formation of a single stem it might develop as a shrub.

    P. armeniaca var. mandshurica is naturally shrubby, but its fruits are only 1" (2.5cm) wide.
     
  6. stankopp

    stankopp Member

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    Location:
    Ashland, Oh USA
    I believe that nectarines, which are a cross between a peach and an apricot, are smooth-skinned. I believe that apricots are fuzzy like peaches. I think all Prunus sp. get those little dried-branch-thorn-like things.
     
  7. CcDry

    CcDry Active Member

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    Location:
    East San Francisco Bay
    nectarines are peaches that happen to lack 'fuzz'.

    spines grow on many young plums (and apricots, which are closely related. forced hybrids are 'apriums', 'pluots')

    i can't recall the technical differnces (originating tissue type) among "Spines, barbs, prickles, thorns, bristles...

    OP's apricot has a lot of reddish coloration.
     

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