Peach Fuzz Begins Inside the Flower: The Peach Blossom and the One Gene Behind the Nectarine

At a summer fruit stand, peaches and nectarines often sit side by side. One is covered in soft, pale fuzz; the other is as smooth as an apple. Many people assume the nectarine is a cross between a peach and a plum, but the two belong to the same species, and the obvious difference between them is the fuzz on the skin. [3] So when and where does a peach’s fuzz begin? Surprisingly, the answer lies not in the fruit but inside the flower. About four weeks before the blossom opens, fuzz starts to appear on the surface of the ovary hidden inside the bud. [4]

This article looks at the structure of the peach blossom, which opens before the leaves, then follows how the hairy ovary at its center becomes a fuzzy fruit, and finally what erased that fuzz in the nectarine.

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A Tree Misunderstood from Its Name

The peach’s scientific name is Prunus persica, and it belongs to the genus Prunus in the rose family. The species name persica means “of Persia,” but the peach did not originate there. Peaches were widely grown in Persia (modern-day Iran) and carried from there to Europe, and European botanists of the 1700s and 1800s went on trusting Roman accounts that the fruit came from Persia. [3] Its true origin is thought to be China. [1] The Flora of China describes the peach as native to northern China and adds that truly wild peaches no longer exist. [2]

The peach also has a long history in cultivation. Since research published in 2014, domestication is thought to have begun as early as 6000 BCE in Zhejiang Province, China, and peach stones from the Kuahuqiao site near Hangzhou are counted as the oldest archaeological evidence. [3]

The tree itself is small and deciduous. It seldom reaches 6.5 meters, and in orchards it is usually pruned to about 3 to 4 meters. The leaves are glossy and lance-shaped, and they usually have glands at their bases that secrete a fluid to attract ants and other insects. [1]

A Flower That Opens Before the Leaves: The Order of Five

Peach blossoms usually open before the leaves appear. The flowers are usually borne singly and measure 2 to 3.5 centimeters across. [2] Varieties grown for fruit commonly have pink or red flowers, while some trees grown as ornamentals have double flowers. [3] How to tell peach blossoms from cherry, plum and apricot blossoms is covered in a separate article on look-alike spring blossoms.

Look closely at a single flower and an orderly design appears. Five petals, five sepals and three whorls of stamens are attached to the rim of a short tube called the hypanthium. [1] There are 20 to 30 stamens, with purplish-red anthers. A single pistil stands in the center of the hypanthium, and the ovary at its base holds two ovules, the future seeds. [2]

Peach blossoms can be fertilized by their own pollen, and only about 5 percent of their pollination comes from other trees. [3] After fertilization the petals fall and the ovary swells into a fruit. The result is a drupe: a hard stone encloses the seed, and the flesh surrounds the stone. [1]

The Fuzz Grows First on the Ovary Inside the Flower

Cut a peach blossom in half lengthwise and a surprising sight appears. The pale green ovary at the bottom of the hypanthium is covered in fine white hairs. The Flora of China also records the peach ovary as hairy. [2] Because this ovary grows into the fruit after fertilization, the hairs on the ovary are the beginning of the fuzz on a peach’s skin.

The fuzz appears earlier than you might think. Observations of the fuzzy peach variety ‘Contender’ show that the fruit-skin hairs are already present on the ovary about four weeks before the flower opens. The gene that makes those hairs, PpeMYB25, switched on in the flower buds a little earlier, five weeks before bloom, and stayed active until one week before bloom. [4] In other words, the fruit’s outer coat is already being made inside the bud before the petals unfold.

The hairs grow along with the fruit, but by the time the fruit is ripe, most of the hairs on its skin are dead cells. [4] Each hair is wrapped in a thin cuticle layer and filled with polysaccharide material. [5]

What the Fuzz Really Is: Trichomes

In botany, peach fuzz is made of trichomes, small outgrowths of the epidermis. The trichomes on peach fruit are non-glandular, meaning they secrete nothing, and each consists of a single cell with a narrow inner space and a thick cell wall. Their structure is similar to the leaf hairs of the lab plant Arabidopsis and to cotton fibers. [6]

What do these hairs do? A review of fruit trichomes describes the peach’s trichomes as a physical barrier with several roles, including disease defense, regulation of water loss and protection from ultraviolet light. [6] There is experimental evidence, too. When Spanish researchers analyzed peach skin, fruits whose hairs had been shaved off or whose surface wax had been removed lost water faster. They also found that the hair layer and the cuticle beneath it interact with water differently, so the skin surface is made of two layers with different properties. [5]

Yet peaches sold in stores have often had much of their fuzz brushed off right after harvest. Researchers point to two reasons for removing hairs that once protected the fruit: allergies and mold. [6] In one study, removing peach trichomes clearly reduced post-harvest brown rot caused by Monilinia fungi and lowered the diversity of bacteria on the fruit surface. [7] The same hairs that guard the fruit while it hangs on the tree may become a place where microbes linger after harvest.

The Nectarine Twist: A Difference of One Gene

The nectarine is not a cross between a peach and a plum. It belongs to the same species as the peach (Prunus persica), and although the two are sold as different fruits, the difference is the lack of hairs, or trichomes, on the skin. Breeding experiments as early as 1906 showed that hairlessness is a recessive trait, and in 1917 the American botanist Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick argued that the differences were simple mutations rather than separate species or varieties. [3]

The identity of that mutation was uncovered in 2014. Italian researchers analyzed 305 second-generation trees from a cross between the fuzzy peach ‘Contender’ and the smooth nectarine ‘Ambra.’ They narrowed the G locus, which decides whether fruit has hairs, to an interval of about 1.1 centimorgans on chromosome 5, roughly 635,000 base pairs of the genome. The candidate they found there was PpeMYB25, a gene for an R2R3-MYB transcription factor that controls hair formation in plants. [4]

In nectarines, a Ty1-copia “jumping gene” (an LTR retrotransposon) has inserted itself into the third exon of this gene. As a result, one amino acid changes and a stop signal follows immediately, cutting the protein off at 112 amino acids. Indeed, the gene switched on in ‘Contender’ flower buds from five weeks before bloom, but its expression was never seen in ‘Ambra’ flower buds. [4] In the very bud where the hairs should begin, the signal to make them is switched off.

When the researchers examined the main ancestors of modern nectarine varieties and even old local varieties from southern Italy, all carried the same insertion. They concluded that the nectarine’s smooth skin traces back to a single mutational event. [4] There are rare exceptions. In 2025, researchers in Taiwan screened 295 peach accessions and found that 294 matched this genotype-to-fuzz pattern. One accession, the ‘Maravilha Nectarine Mutant’ that arose from a peach, had an intact gene sequence yet no hairs, and no PpMYB25 transcript was detected in it at all. [8] Whether the sequence is broken or the switch is off, the presence of fuzz comes down to whether this gene is working.

The English word “nectarine” first appeared in print in 1611, but nectarines were probably grown much earlier within the peach’s native range in central and eastern Asia. [3] As of 2013, nectarines made up 30 percent of peach production in Italy and 20 percent in the United States. [4]

Fuzz and Allergies: A Protein Concentrated in the Skin

Some people feel an itchy mouth or a prickly throat when they eat or handle peaches. A main culprit is Pru p 3, a non-specific lipid transfer protein (nsLTP) of about 9 kilodaltons. In a prospective study in Spain, 83.4 percent of 302 peach-allergic patients were sensitized to Pru p 3. [9]

This protein is concentrated in the skin rather than the flesh. A study of yellow and red peaches found that peel extracts contained about seven times as much lipid transfer protein as pulp extracts. [10] The fuzz is rich in it as well. Italian researchers reported that peach fuzz extract contains large amounts of this protein and that patients’ sera reacted more strongly to fuzz than to peel. They also proposed a hypothesis that differences in fuzz loss from brushing and washing before sale might help explain why this allergy is more common in Mediterranean countries than in Northern Europe. [11] Pru p 3 has also been observed inside the trichomes of ripe peaches. [6] Because its structure resists heat and digestive enzymes, it does not easily disappear with cooking. [9]

Still, to say that peach fuzz exists to bother people gets things backward. The hairs are a structure that protects the fruit’s moisture and surface, and the abundance of an allergenic protein in the skin and fuzz is a separate observation. If you have a peach allergy, do not assume that peeling or washing makes the fruit safe; it is better to consult an allergist.

A peach’s fuzz does not begin at the fruit stand. It starts at the heart of a five-petaled flower that opens before the leaves, on the ovary inside the bud about a month before bloom. The signal to make those hairs comes from a single gene, PpeMYB25, and a tree in which a jumping gene has slipped into that gene bears smooth nectarines. That flower and fruit, appearance and gene are linked in one continuous line shows how finely woven God’s creation becomes the closer we look.

References

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica: Peach — Origin in China, tree height, leaf glands, petals, sepals, three whorls of stamens and hypanthium, drupe.
2. Flora of China: Amygdalus persica — Flowers opening before leaves, 2–3.5 cm across, 20–30 stamens, pubescent ovary, native to northern China. Genus description: two ovules in the ovary.
3. Wikipedia: Peach — Origin of the scientific name, domestication and the Kuahuqiao site, self-fertility and about 5% outcrossing, nectarine history (1611, 1906, 1917).
4. Vendramin et al. (2014): A Unique Mutation in a MYB Gene Cosegregates with the Nectarine Phenotype in Peach. PLoS ONE — Ovary hairs four weeks before bloom, timing of PpeMYB25 expression, G locus 1.1 cM (635 kb), Ty1-copia insertion in exon 3 and truncation at 112 amino acids, single mutational origin, production share.
5. Fernández et al. (2011): New Insights into the Properties of Pubescent Surfaces: Peach Fruit as a Model. Plant Physiology — Composition of trichomes, faster dehydration after removing hairs or wax, differing properties of the hair layer and cuticle.
6. Fu et al. (2025): The role, regulation and application of plant fruit trichomes. Molecular Horticulture — Structure and functions of peach trichomes, brushing right after harvest, location of Pru p 3 in trichomes.
7. Shen et al. (2023): Effect of peach trichome removal on post-harvest brown rot and on the fruit surface microbiome. International Journal of Food Microbiology — Less brown rot and a changed surface microbiome after trichome removal.
8. Huang et al. (2025): Transcriptomic analysis of peaches and nectarines reveals alternative mechanism for trichome formation. BMC Plant Biology — Screening of 295 accessions and the exception of the Maravilha Nectarine Mutant.
9. Thermo Fisher Allergen Encyclopedia: Pru p 3 (f420) — 9 kDa nsLTP, sensitization in 83.4% of 302 patients in Spain, resistance to heat and digestive enzymes.
10. Carnés et al. (2002): Pru p 3 (LTP) content in peach extracts. Allergy — Peel contains about seven times as much LTP as pulp.
11. Asero et al. (2006): Peach fuzz contains large amounts of lipid transfer protein. European Annals of Allergy and Clinical Immunology — LTP in fuzz extract and a hypothesis about pre-market handling.

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