About Stone Fruits

The earliest mentions of peaches in Chinese literature date to 1000 B.C.E., when a book of poems and songs was written describing pink peach blossoms and peach trees with ripe fruit. The fruit spread westward to Persia and Rome via caravan trade on the Silk Road in the second century B.C.E., and from Rome, throughout Europe.

Peaches were introduced to the United States by the Spanish in Florida during the 1500s. From there, they spread up the East Coast and west to the Mississippi. Several groups brought peaches to California. Spanish missionaries were first in the 1700s. In the early 1800s, Russian immigrants brought peach seeds or trees by ship to San Francisco, and during the Gold Rush, settlers in California planted peaches as well.

Nectarines also originated in China, and likely arose from natural variation in peach seeds. Peach trees will sometimes produce a few nectarines, and nectarine trees a few peaches. They’re close relatives; in fact, they’re only one gene different – the one that controls the fuzz. Nectarines have gotten their own name relatively recently; they were described historically as "fuzzless peaches."

Though plums arose in China, most of the plums sold in the U.S. and Canada are known as Japanese plums. These plums are rounded in shape, with some having a small pointed tip. The first Japanese plums came to California from Japan in 1870.

European plums are the other type of plums available from California. These plums are oval or teardrop-shaped, have purple to blue skin and are smaller than Japanese plums. Early settlers brought this plum to the United States.