Chinese Cling Peach
One of the most important breeding stock varieties, the Chinese Cling Peach impressed southerners with its gargantuan size, its blanched yellow skin, its rich tasting flesh, and its prolific fruiting. There were liabilities with the fruit, foremost of which was a inclination to spoil. It was and is a moderately sweet peach, with a BRIX level averaging about 8.5 in a stress free season. As its name indicates, the flesh adheres to the stone of this variety. Immensely important in the history of Chinese Peach breeding, it was the fruit that built the reputation of the city of Shanghai. It was the famous shui mi tao (水蜜桃), the Honey Nectar Peach, first described in 1621 as growing in the garden of Gu Mingshi, a governmental official and horticulturist. It came to the notice of Europeans in the early 1840s when the early British plant hunter and tea broker Robert Fortune described it: “Amongst the more important of the acquisitions which I made in the vicinity of Shanghae [sic], I must not forget to mention a fine and large variety of peach, which comes into the markets there about the middle of August, and remains in perfection for about ten days. It is grown in the peach orchards, a few miles to the south of the city; and it is quite a usual thing to see peaches of this variety eleven inches in circumferences and twelve ounces in weight. This is, probably, what some writers call the Peking peach, about which such exaggerated stories have been told.”
He sent scion wood to England. Several Americans read Fortune’s account—some had their own connections to China. Henry Lyons of Columbia, South Carolina secured scion wood fromthis famous tree from China in the 1840s. From his midlands orchard, Lyons disseminated this peach to various pomologists throughout the South. One of the persons who received trees was Samuel Rumph of Georgia. He crossed it with an Early Crawford, to created the greatest market Peach the South would ever see: the Elberta—shippable, big, and not prone to fast decay.
The eating quality of the Chinese Cling was judged as fine in the nineteenth century. But white fleshed peaches such as the Belle of Georgia and Heath Cling had a firmer hold on public taste. The Yellow Clings would vault to the front when the Chinese Cling was crossed with the Crawford, Oldmixon, and other old European strains.
Alternate name: General Lee, Shanghai Honey Nectar Peach.
Atlanta Nursery Company Catalog 1891. Very large; skin clear and straw color, with a delicately mottled, light red cheek; flesh juicy, sweet, and and when fully ripe most delicious. Remarkable for its size, beauty, and productiveness; July 10. Inclined to rot
Nurseries that sold Chinese Cling prior to 1920:
Alabama Nursery Company, Huntsville AL 1900. D. Beatie, Atlanta Nursery, 1891, 1895. W. Craft’s Cedar Grover Nursery, Salem, NC 1893. Cherokee Nursery, Waycross, GA 1893. Clingman Nursery & Orchard, Kiethville LA 1908. Colmant Nurseries, West End AL 1904. Smith Brothers Concord Nursery, Concord GA 1909. Delaware Nurseries, Milford DE 1910. Chattanooga Nurseries Dixie Garden Handbook, Chattanooga TN 1907. S. Downer & Sons Nursery, Fairview KY 1870. J. Berckmans Fruitland Nurseries, Augusta GA 1877. William Summer Pomaria Nursery, Pomaria SC 1856. C. Ferrell Planter’s Nurseries, Humboldt TN 1894. Franklin Davis Richmond Nurseries, Richmond VA 1869. Van Lindley Nursery, Pomona NC 1915. Turkey Creek Nursuries, Macclenny FL 1906. Charles Wright, Peachland Nurseries, Seaford DE 1891, Munson Hill Nurseries & Greenhouses, Falles Church VA 1908. Forked Deer Nursery, Curve TN 1890. T. Hood Old Dominion Nursery, Richmond VA 1894. L. Taber, Glen St. Mary Nursery, Glen St. Mary FL 1894. W. Fitz, Southern Apple & Peach Culturist, Richmond VA 1872.