Tonight I thought I would share a few pictures I took today of fruits and nuts. This is the time of year when harvest is starting for many of the orchards in California.

Here are some nectarines that are almost ready to pick. Nectarines are the same species as peaches (Prunus persica) , but do not have the fuzz of the peach. The nectarine is not a cross between peaches and plums as some people think. The nectarine is simply a peach without the fuzz. A recessive gene is responsible for that missing fuzz.

Here is a nice fuzzy peach (Prunus persica). You can see how the color would be much darker without the fuzz. This peach looks like it is about ready to be picked.

Here are some figs. None of these in the picture are quite ready to pick, although there were some on the tree that were. They were delicious.

Here are a few walnuts on a young tree. The walnut tree (Juglans regia) originated in the mountains of Central Asian. In Latin the walnut was know as nux Gallica as they were grown in the Galatian region of what is today Turkey.

Just for good measure I thought I would throw in a picture of tomatoes since they are a fruit. From a culinary standpoint they are treated as vegetables, but a botanist will tell you that they are a fruit.

Many of us will have heard the stories about how tomatoes were originally considered poisonous. Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) are a member of the nightshade (Solanaceae) family and the leaves are indeed poisonous. However, the fruit of the plant is not poisonous.

Now I am hungry, I think that I need a snack before bed.

Steven