Originally Posted by Ice

Nectarine is a cultivar group of peach that has a smooth, fuzzless skin. Though fuzzy peaches and nectarines are commercially regarded as different fruits, they belong to the same species. Nectarines have arisen many times from peach trees, often as bud sports. Nectarines can be white or yellow, and clingstone or freestone. Regular peach trees occasionally produce a few nectarines, and vice versa. Their flesh is more easily bruised than peaches. The history of the nectarine is unclear; the first recorded mention is from 1616 in England, but they had probably been grown much earlier in central Asia.