Pynis maltis. 



THE COiMiMON APPLE-TREE. 



Synonynies. 



Pyrus tnalus, 



Pomier commun, 



Gemeiner Apfelbaum, 



Melo, 



Manzano, 



JIaceira, 



lablon, 



Apple-tree, 



LiNNJECs, Species Plantarum. 



De Candom.e, Prcxlromus. 



Loudon, Arboretum Britaimicum. 



France. 



Germany. 



Italy. 



Spain. 



Portugal. 



Russia. 



Britain and Anglo-America. 



Engrarhiss. Lindley, Pomologia Britannica ; Hoffy, Orchardist's Companion ; Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, vi., pi. 173 

 et 174; and the figures below. 



Specific Characters. Leaves ovate, acute, crenated, woolly on the under surface. Flowers in corymbs. 

 Tube of calyx woolly. Styles glabrous. De Candolle, Prodromus. 



Desciipdon. \ 



"The fragrant stores, the wide projected heaps 

 Of apples, which the hisly- handed year, 

 Innumerous o'er the blushiiiff orchard shakes ; 

 A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen, 

 Dwells in their e;elid pores; and, active, points 

 The piercing cider for the thirsty tongue." 



Thomson. 



HE Com- 

 mon Apple- 

 tree, in an 

 indigenous 

 state, when young, is generally more 

 or less furnished with spines, which 

 gradually disappeai, as it advances in 

 age ; when growing wild, however, in 

 a very fertile soil, this tree, as well as 

 the crab, and the common hawthorn, 

 sometimes occurs without thorns. Under favourable circumstances, it usually 

 attains a height of thirty or forty feet, with a trunk from one foot to eighteen 

 inches in diameter. The trunk is naturally crooked, and the branches, when 

 young, generally take a horizontal direction ; but when old, they droop or become 

 pendulous. The diameter of the head is often greater than the height of the 

 tree, its growth, in this respect, being quite different from that of the pear, 

 which is lofty and upright, while that of the apple is low and spreading. The 

 leaves of the apple are commonly wider in proportion to their length, less obvi- 

 ously serrated, and somewhat more hairy and whitish underneath than those of 

 the pear. Their vascular system too, is very different, being loose in the apple, 

 and very close in the pear. Hence the leaves of the latter are much stouter, and 

 more permanent than those of the former. They usually fall, in England, by 

 the 20th of November, five weeks later at Naples, and a month earlier at New 

 York. The blossoms of the apple are tinged with red, and are fragrant ; while 

 those of the pear are of a pure white, and scentless. They usually appear a' 

 Naples by the 20th of March, a month later in England, two months later ai 

 Perth Amboy : but not in Sweden before the 1st of June. The fruit of the appl. 



