A coat of tiny hairs
Why Is a Peach Fuzzy?
A peach is covered in fine hairs, and a nectarine is the same fruit without them — the difference is one gene.
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Step 1 of 5
The hairs are part of the skin.
Each one grows out of the fruit's surface, the same way a hair grows out of skin. They stand up in a dense layer over the whole peach.
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Step 2 of 5
They hold a layer of still air.
Still air next to the skin is what stops water escaping. The fuzz traps a layer of it, so a peach dries out far more slowly than a bare-skinned fruit.
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Step 3 of 5
They also put insects off.
A layer of hairs makes it hard for a small insect to get a grip or reach the skin to bite. It is a physical fence rather than a poison.
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Step 4 of 5
A nectarine is the same fruit without them.
Nectarines are not a cross with anything. A single gene switched off stops the hairs growing, and everything else about the fruit is a peach.
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Step 5 of 5
Smooth skin costs it something.
Without the fuzz a nectarine bruises more easily, loses water faster and is more prone to disease — which is why the fuzzy version came first.
A peach tree can produce both. A branch on a peach tree occasionally reverts and grows nectarines instead.
The short version
A peach's fuzz traps still air to slow water loss and makes it hard for insects to bite, and a nectarine is a peach without it.
Try it yourself
Rinse a peach and watch how the water beads on the fuzz instead of wetting the skin.