ON CERTAIN SMALL-FKUITKD PEAKS. 229 



his views, and which were originally published in the " Gardeners' 

 Chronicle," November 27, 1875, p. 684. 



" Dr. Phene visited Brittany, to trace practically any connection 

 — if such could be found — between the legends which connect the 

 ' Isle of Apples' of Arthurian repute with that locality, and those 

 which connect it with Britain. King Arthui', it appears, is supposed 

 to have been buried either in the Island of Avalon (Grlastoubury), in 

 England, or in that of Aiguillon in Armorica, the equivalent of Isle of 

 Avalon being Isle of Apples. An island in Loch Awe, in Argyllshire, 

 has a Celtic legend containing the principal features of Arthurian 

 story, but in this case the word is ' berries' instead of apples. These 

 particulars were fully given in a paper read on June 10, 1875, by Dr. 

 Phene before the Royal Historical Society, in which he expressed a 

 belief that the legend of the mystical Arthur was derived from the 

 character of Arjuna given in the Indian poem, " Miha Barata." After 

 closely examining the island in Loch Awe, and Avalon in Somersetshire, 

 he concluded his researches by a visit to Armorica, Brittany. He 

 there observed a tree which helped him to the apples of Avalon and 

 the berries of Loch Awe, for the apples on the tree were berries. 

 The specimen he has submitted to us is the Finis cordata of Desvaux, 

 and it is interesting to note, in support of Dr. Phene's argu- 

 ment, that it has been found in Western France — perhaps in South- 

 western England, if the plant found by Mr. Briggs near Plymouth, 

 and called by Dr. Boswell-Syme * Pyrus communis, var. Briggsii,' be 

 the same — and nowhere else in Europe. Both countries had 

 their western shores occupied, anterior to the invasion of the Cymry, 

 by a peculiar race of people having strong Oriental characteristics, 

 and which people some authors describe as occupying the country as 

 far north as Argyllshire — the evidences of such occupation having been 

 laid before the British Association at Bristol in September, 1875, in 

 Dr. Phene's paper on that subject — while the same tree is found on 

 Mount Elbruz in North-east Persia — a country not remote from that 

 which formed the arena of Arjuna's exploits, and whence it would 

 seem to have been imported to the west of Europe. 



" The geographical distribution of P. cordata in Persia and in 

 Western Europe was inexplicable, but now seems to be reasonably 

 accounted for." 



It may be well to add that the plant labelled P. cordata, Desv., 

 in Billot's " Exsiccata, No. 2458 (Herb. Mus. Brit.), is decidedly diffe- 

 rent from the true plant of Desvaux, Decaisne, Durieu, Boissier, and 

 Buhse. It differs in the larger size of all its parts, in its more per- 

 sistent sepals, and its fruits, which are broadest below, tapering 

 upward into a kind of neck, a form which in an Apple would be recog- 

 nised by pomologists as Pearmain- shaped. 



Lastly, it may be stated that none of the forms of half-wild Pears 

 described and figured by Mr. Wilson Saunders in the Journal of the 

 Koyal Horticultural Society, 1872, p. 95, are at all like either of the 

 small-fruited forms mentioned in this paper. 



Description of Tab. 180. 

 Figs. 1 and 2. Pi/rus communis, L., var. Briggsii, from specimens in the 

 British Museum collected at Egg Buckland, S. Devon, by Mr. T. R. Archer 

 Briggs. 3. Pyrus cordata, Desv. From a specimen in the Kew Herbarium 

 (Herb. J. Gay) collected in the Gironde, France. 



