58 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 



petals 5, white, pink or red, inserted on the thickened border of the disk; stamens 15 to 20, 

 in three rows; styles 2 to 5, free or united below; carpels 2 to 5, inferior, crowned by the 

 styles, usually 2-seeded. Fruit an ovoid or pyriform pome; seeds two in each cell, brown 

 or brownish, lustrous, mucilaginous on the outer surface. 



The genus comprises fifty to sixty species in the north temperate zone 

 of the three continents. The largest number is found in south-central and 

 eastern Asia. In North America, Pyrus is represented by five species, 

 while eight or nine species inhabit Europe. In several of the species there 

 are many natural varieties. The two sections of Pyrus, given the rank 

 of genera by some authors, are distinguished as follows: 



1. Apples (Malus). Flowers pink, rose-color, red or sometimes white, borne in fas- 

 cicles or subumbellate clusters on short spurs or lateral branchlets; ovary 3- to 5-celled; 

 styles more or less united at the base. Fruit more or less globular with a distinct 

 depression at both ends, the flesh without grit cells, rounded at the base. The species 

 in this section number 30 to 40, of which not more than a half dozen are domesticated- 



2. Pears (Pyrus). Flowers white, few, borne in corymbs on short spurs or lateral 

 branchlets; ovary 5-celled; styles usually free. Fruit usually pyriform, sometimes sub- 

 globose, usually conical at the base, the flesh usually bearing grit cells when ripened on 

 the tree. The species number 15 to 20 of which but two arc truly domesticated, but 

 several others give promise of value for stocks and possibly for their fruits. 



THE STRUCTURAL BOTANY OF THE PEAR 



A major purpose in The Pears of New York is to describe varieties 

 of pears so that their faults and merits can be seen, and that varieties 

 may be identified. It is apparent at once that one cannot describe accurately 

 nor understand the descriptions of others unless acquainted with the organs 

 of tree and fruit — one must know the form and structure of the whole 

 plant. A study of the organs of plants is structural botany. Plant 

 descriptions are portraitures of the plant's organs, and structural botany 

 thus becomes the foundation of systematic pomology, with a study of 

 which, as concerns the pear, we are to be chiefly concerned in the following 

 pages. We must, therefore, pay some attention to the structural botany 

 of the pear. A pear is one of the pome-fruits. What is a pome? 



A pome is variously defined by students of structural botany. The 

 most conspicuous part of the apple, pear, or quince, the best-known pome- 

 fruits, is the outer, fleshy, edible part. This succulent part is said by 

 some botanists to be the thickened calyx; others say that it is the enlarged 

 receptacle. Some botanists believe that a pome consists of two to five 

 drupe-like fruits, each drupe called a carpel, each of which contains one 



