THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 75 



one hundred years ago until 191 5 when Rehder, discovering that the true 

 P. sinensis had been lost to cultivation, proposed the name P. lindleyi 

 for one group and P. serotina for another group of Chinese pears passing 

 under Lindley's original species, P. sinensis. 



This species comes from central and western China, where the fruits 

 are used for food under the name, with that of other brown-fruited species, 

 of tang-li. American pomologists are interested in the type species as a 

 possible source of blight-resistant stocks for varieties of the common pear. 

 Stocks of this species, however, grown on the Pacific slope have not proved 

 satisfactory because difficult to bud, and very susceptible to leaf-blight, 

 and because they are not as resistant to pear-blight as an ideal stock should 

 be. Rehder, an authority on oriental pears, gives two botanical varieties. 

 His var. stapfiana differs from the type in bearing pyriform fruits; leaves 

 with less appressed serratures; and petals with attenuate claws. So far 

 as now appears it is of no greater value to pomology than the type. The 

 other botanical variety which Rehder describes, var. culta, is of great 

 importance in pomology and must have detailed consideration. 



PYRUS SEROTINA CULTA Rehder 



1. Rehder Prod. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci. 50:233. 1915. 



2. P. sinensis Hort. Not Lindley nor Poiret. 



3. P. japonica Hort. Not Thunberg. 



3. P. sieboldi Carriere Rev. Hort. no. 1880. 



5. P. sinensis culta Makino Tokyo Bol. Mag. 22:69. 1908. 



Tree large, vigorous; top spreading, drooping, open; trunk thick, shaggy; branches 

 stout, zigzag, greenish-brown, with a sHght covering of scarf-skin marked with many 

 conspicuous, elongated lenticels; branchlets slender, with long intemodes, brownish-red, 

 tinged with green and with thin, ash-gray scarf-skin, glabrous, with many unusually 

 conspicuous, raised lenticels. Leaf -buds sharply pointed, plump, thick at the base, free; 

 leaf -scars prominent. Leaves 45 in. long, 25 in. wide, thick, leathery; apex taper-pointed; 

 margin tipped with very fine reddish-brown glands, finely serrate; petiole thick, 2 in. 

 long, lightly pubescent, greenish-red. Flower-buds thick, short, conical, plump, free, 

 arranged singly on very short spurs; flowers with a disagreeable odor, bloom in mid- 

 season, 1 4 in. across, averaging 7 buds in a cluster; calyx-lobes long, narrow, acuminate, 

 glandular, reflexed, lightly pubescent within and without; petals broadly oval, entire, 

 apex rounded; pistils 4 or 5, from a common base, longer than the stamens, pubescent at 

 base; stamens j in. long, with dull red anthers; pedicels i^ in. long, slender, thinly 

 pubescent, pale green. 



Fruit ripe February-March ; 2j in. long, 2I in. wide, round, slightly pyriform, 

 irregularly ribbed, with unequal sides; stem ij in. long, curved, slender; cavity acute, 

 deep, narrow, furrowed, lipped; calyx deciduous; basin shallow, wide, obtuse, gently 



