Small to medium-sized, peach trees seldom reach 6.5 meters (21 feet) in height. Under cultivation, however, they are usually kept between 3 and 4 meters (10 and 13 feet) by pruning. The leaves are glossy green, lance-shaped, and long pointed; they usually have glands at their bases that secrete a fluid to attract ants and other insects. The flowers, borne in the leaf axils, are arranged singly or in groups of two or three at nodes along the shoots of the previous season’s growth. The five petals, usually pink but occasionally white, five sepals, and three whorls of stamens are borne on the outer rim of the short tube, known as the hypanthium, that forms the base of the flower.

Nectarines are peaches with smooth skin.

peach
peachFruit of the peach tree (Prunus persica).
The peach fruit develops from a single ovary that ripens into both a fleshy juicy exterior that forms the edible part of the fruit and a hard interior, called the stone or pit, that encloses the seed(s). Of the two ovules in the ovary, usually only one beco