The apricot is a small golden-orange stone fruit of the tree Prunus armeniaca, kin to the peach, plum and cherry. Velvety-skinned and barely larger than a plum, a ripe one is soft, honeyed and faintly tart, with a perfume of flowers and almond that comes from its lactone- and ionone-rich flesh. Picked underripe it is firm and sour; left too long it turns mealy and winey, so its peak window is famously brief.