There is something curious in the etymology of the words "apricot,"
"peach," and "nectarine," and in their equivalents in several languages,
which may amuse your readers.

The apricot is an Armenian or Persian fruit, and was known to the Romans
later than the peach. It is spoken of by Pliny and by Martial.

Plin. N.H., lib. xv. c. 12.:

"Post autumnum maturescunt Persica, æstate _præcocia_, intra xxx annos
reperta."

Martial, lib. xiii. Epig. 46.:

"Vilia maternis fueramus _præcoqua_ ramis,
Nunc in adaptivis Persica care sumus."

Its only name was given from its ripening earlier than the peach.

The words used in Galen for the same fruit (evidently Græcised Latin), are
[Greek: prokokkia] and [Greek: prekokkia]. Elsewhere he says of this fruit,
[Greek: tautês ekleleiphthai to palaion onoma]. Dioscorides, with a nearer
approach to the Latin, calls apricots [Greek: praikokia.]

From _præcox_, though not immediately, _apricot_ seems to be derived.

Johnson, unable to account for the initial _a_, derives it from _apricus_.
The American lexicographer Webster gives, strangely enough _albus coccus_
as its derivation.