Chinese, which is much cultivated in the Province of Chili 
for its delicious, pale yellow, apple-shaped fruit. Otherwise 
P. sinensis is known in China as sha-li (sand pear) and 
was mentioned as such by Roxburgh in his Hortus 
Bengalensis in 1814. According to him it was introduced 
into the neighbourhood of Calcutta before 1794, but it pro- 
duced little truit and that of very bad quality. He figures 
the pear in an unpublished drawing as much depressed at 
the top. On the other hand, a very fine coloured Chinese 
drawing in the Kew collection shows the pear almost 
globose, of a dull yellowish-brown and with whitish spots. 
It may be remarked that the basal nerves of the leaves are 
sometimes much more oblique, more conspicuous, and more 
produced towards the apex than the others, giving the leaf 
the appearance of being triplinerved; but, as a rule, the 
lateral nerves are more or less parallel and uniform. In 
the wild state the sand pear was found by Maack, Maximo- 
wicz, and others in the vaileys of the southern tributaries of 
the lower Amur and the Manchurian littoral. Here the 
fruit is smaller and very astringent. 
Descriprion.— Tree, 30-40 ft. high, with glabrous or 
fugaciously hairy branchlets which at first are of a warm 
brown or purplish colour, but at length turn dark or 
greyish-brown. Leaf buds glabrous, ovoid, with very acute 
scales. Leaves ovate from a broad base, acuminate, densely 
serrate, the teeth running out into fine almost bristle-like 
points which may at length fall off, 2-4 in. long, 14 to 
over 2 in. broad, subcoriaceous, of a rich green when 
mature, long persistent, glabrous or when young more or 
less covered with a cobwebby brownish tomentum, particu- 
larly along the edges and midrib; petiole 1-2 in. long; 
stipules subulate, ciliate. Flowers in 4—9-flowered corymbs 
on sparingly leafy short shoots ; pedicels glabrous or more 
or less hairy, sometimes almost 2 in. long. Calyx like the 
receptacle, glabrous or cobwebby, woolly without, always 
woolly within; sepals ovate-lanceolate or triangular, denti- 
culate. Petals white, obovate to ovate, 2-3 in. long. 
Anthers purple. Fruit in the wild plant globose with a sub- 
persistent calyx, olive-brown with numerous lenticels, 1 in. 
in diameter, in the cultivated plant much larger, as much 
as 3 In. across, and sometimes obovoid.—Orro Srapr. 
