442 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



smooth, and of a rich, glossy, deep green above, with small, 

 dark, purple glands on the mid-rib. Flowers white with some- 

 times a slight rosy or purplish tinge, in terminal, compound, 

 downy corymbs. Partial flower-stalks hairy, with slender, de- 

 ciduous bracts at base. Calyx downy, segments acute, with 

 minute glands on the edge. Petals roundish, often emarginate, 

 concave. Filaments white, anthers purple. Ovaries 5, woolly, 

 united at base; styles smooth, straight. Stigmas capitate. 

 Fruit a pome with 5 cells and 10 seeds, of the size of a whor- 

 tleberry, often downy, sometimes shining, dark red or reddish 

 purple, rather dry, astringent, and sweetish to the taste. 



This is abundantly found in moist, open woods, or in dry, 

 shady woods, or along their border, and makes a handsome ap- 

 pearance, in little clumps, with its bunches of flowers, in May 

 and June, and its erect, purple fruit, in autumn. If cultivated, 

 it would probably increase in all its proportions, and would cer- 

 tainly form a very ornamental little shrub. 



A finer and larger variety of this plant sometimes occurs, and, 

 in certain places along the sides of wet woods, is more common 

 than the one just described. This has been considered by Will- 

 denow, and, after him, by Pursh, as a separate species, under 

 the name of P. melanocarpa. There is little difference in the 

 flowers or foliage, the latter being, however, in every part, a 

 smoother plant. The fruit is larger, in a closer corymb, much 

 more juicy and agreeable to the taste, and of a shining black 

 color. It is, probably, only a variety, as individual plants oc- 

 cur more or less distantly removed from these two extremes, 

 and of which it would be difficult to say to which they should 

 be considered as belonging. 



XXVII. 3. THE WILD SUGAR PEAR. AMELA'N- 



CHIER. Medic. 



Small trees, with simple, serrate, deciduous leaves, white, 

 racemed flowers, and linear-lanceolate, deciduous bracts, dis- 

 tinguished by obovate-oblong or lanceolate petals ; stamens 

 rather shorter than the calyx ; ovary with 10 (or 5 bipartite) 

 cells, each containing a solitary ovule ; 5 styles partially united 

 at base ; pome, when matured, with 3 — 5 cells, and 3 — 5 seeds. 



