Nectarines are nectarines.

I have been under the impression for many years now that a nectarine was a cross between a peach and a plum. Many people have agreed with me. Last Saturday I was picnicking with Jess K and she disagreed. She was firmly of the opinion that it was a peach and an apricot. How silly. Plums have smooth skins, so that's where nectarines get their smooth skins, and the reddish colour, whereas peaches and apricots are hairy, so how could you get a nectarine from that? But nothing would change her mind, so as we wandered home we stopped in at Randwick fruit shop and asked the man stacking the nectarines what nectarines are made of.

His answer: nectarines are just nectarines. We were both wrong. Then he gave us each a slice of nectarine. We were only 50% convinced, and 50% still in favour of our own theory, so we vowed to google it: and lo, wikipedia backs up the fruiterer. They are in fact a sort of peach with a recessive gene for smooth skins, but they aren't a hybrid or anything. So there you go. Nectarines are nectarines.