Pyrus 



149 



At Croome Court, the seat of the Earl of Coventry, there are two good-sized 

 trees in the shrubbery, one of which is 59 feet high and 6 feet 2 inches in girth. 

 The other, with a clean stem, about 50 feet by 7, is beginning to decay.^ Lady 

 Coventry told me that the fruit, which is only produced in good seasons, makes 

 excellent jam when fully ripe, but some seeds which she was good enough to send 

 me did not germinate. 



London mentions a tree at Melbury Court, Dorsetshire, estimated to be 200 

 years old, and 82 feet high, with a diameter of 3 feet 4 inches, growing in dry loam on 

 sand. If this was really a true sorb, it must have been the largest on record, but I 

 learn from the gardener at Melbury that it has long been dead. 



There are two good-sized trees at Painshill, and another at Syon which Henry 

 found to be 44 feet high and 6 feet 9 inches in girth, but on this heavy soil the tree 

 does not seem to be so long lived, and is dying at the top. 



In the Botanic Gardens at Oxford are two well-shaped trees of this species, 

 which were laden with fruit in 1905, and supposed to have been planted by 

 Dr. John Sibthorp, who was Professor of Botany in 1784-95. The largest 

 measures about 50 feet by 5 feet, and is of the maliform variety. Its fruit, which 

 ripens and falls about the middle of October, is very sweet and pleasant to eat, 

 much better than medlars, whilst the fruit of the other, which is the pyriform 

 variety, does not turn red, is smaller, and ripens later. I have raised seedlings from 

 both of these trees. 



In the Cambridge Botanic Garden there is a tree with very upright branches, 

 which measured, in 1906, 42 feet by 3 feet 4 inches. 



At Tortworth there is a healthy, well-shaped tree, not more than 40 years 

 planted, which is about 40 feet by 5 feet 1 1 inches. This is in a rather exposed 

 situation, and it had no fruit in 1905. 



At Woodstock, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, there is a tree which seems to be the 

 largest now living in this country. Henry measured it in 1904 and found it ']'] feet 

 high by 10 feet 8 inches in girth, with a bole dividing into three stems at 10 feet 

 from the ground and bearing fruit. 



Timber 



A large tree was blown down at Claremont Park, Surrey, the seat of H.R.H, 

 the Duchess of Connaught, in 1902, which I am assured by Mr. Burrell, the 

 gardener there, was a sorb.^ Its trunk was sent to Mr. Snell of Esher, to whom I 

 am indebted for two fine planks of its wood. These show a very hard, heavy, 

 compact surface of a pinkish brown colour with a fine wavy grain, which takes 

 an excellent polish, and this wood has been used with beautiful effect in the framing 



' Loudon speaks of a tree at Croome 45 years planted, and 80 feet high, which is possibly the same, but his measurements 

 are very unreliable. 



* " Among interesting trees to be found at Claremont is a good specimen of the pear-shaped service, carrying a heavy 

 crop of fruit. It is rather over 60 feet high and 7 feet 6 inches in girth at 2 feet from the ground." Note by E. B. in Garden, 

 1883, xxiv. 422. Mr. E. Burrell gives a fuller account of the Claremont trees in the same journal, 1888, xxxiii. 154, in which 

 he states that he thinks the variety maliformis does not increase in height after it gets to be about 30 feet high, whereas 

 pyrifarmis at Claremont is close on 70 feet high. 



