A group of hybrids between the almond and the peach, known since the sixteenth century and perhaps even earlier. The pioneer plant-breeder Thomas Knight raised the hybrid artificially early in the 19th century by pollinating the almond with the peach, and the cross has been repeated since, producing plants similar to ‘Pollardii’. The almond-peach has leaves similar to those of the peach and is intermediate in its fruits, which usually have a thin, dry flesh and a flattened stone, which is bonier than in the almond; but various combinations of fruit and stone-characters can occur, even on the same tree. The hybrid is mainly represented in cultivation by:
‘Pollardii’. – Leaves like those of the common almond but more sharply toothed. Flowers bright pink, flushed deeper at the centre, about 2 in. across. Filaments of anthers deep pink. Shell of the stone both furrowed and pitted; kernels bitter. Rather earlier flowering than the common almond. It was raised around 1904 by Mr Pollard of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, and was originally grown as P. communis or P. amygdalus pollardii. F.C.C. February 9, 1935. A.G.M. 1937.