Pyrus 



155 



PYRUS LATI FOLIA, Service Tree of Fontainebleau 



Pyrus latifolia^ Boswell Syme, Bot. Exchange Club Report, 1872-1874, p. 19 (1875). 

 Pyrus rotundifolia, Bechstein, N. E. Brown in Eng. Bot. iii. ed. Suppl. 164 (1892). 

 Cratcegus latifolia, Lamarck, Flore Frangaise, ed. i. 486 (1778). 

 Sorbus latifolia, Persoon, Syn. PL ii. 38 (1807). 



A tree, attaining a height of 60 feet in France, with smooth, grey bark, which 

 becomes fissured at the base in old trees. Leaves broadly oval, with a broad, 

 rounded, or truncate base and an acute apex ; margin with small triangular lobes, 

 decreasing in size from the base of the leaf upwards, dentate and mucronate, the 

 sinuses opening between the lobes almost at a right angle. The leaves are firm in 

 texture, shining and glabrous above, tomentose and greyish green beneath, with 6 to 

 10 pairs of lateral nerves prominent underneath. Flowers in moderate-sized corymbs, 

 never long peduncled. Fruit globular, \ inch diameter, smooth, reddish, marked with 

 brown dots, flesh edible ; containing two cells, one seed in each cell, or more often 

 one cell with one seed, the other cell containing two aborted ovules. 



The description just given is drawn up from Fontainebleau specimens ; and trees 

 absolutely identical are said to occur in various forests in Seine-et-Oise, Seine-et- 

 Marne, Marne, Aube, and Yonne. 



A series of forms,^ however, occur in the forests of the east of France, in Alsace- 

 Lorraine, Spain, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, and Bosnia, which differ slightly in the 

 general outline of the leaf and in the colour and marking of the fruit ; and these 

 are supposed to be hybrids between Pyrus Aria and Pyrus torminalis, between 

 which species they oscillate in the characters of the foliage and fruit ; whereas, 

 according to French botanists, the tree of Fontainebleau is a true species, as it repro- 

 duces itself naturally by seed ; and, moreover, one of the supposed parents, Pyrus 

 Aria, is not, according to Fliche, wild in the forest of Fontainebleau.^ However, 

 the differences are trifling ; and it is convenient, in the present state of our know- 

 ledge, to treat these supposed hybrids as varieties of Pyrus latifolia. 



Varieties 



Var. rotundifolia (Bechstein).^ Leaves broadly oval or suborbicular, sometimes 

 even broader than long, truncate or rounded at the base, sub-obtuse at the apex ; 

 lobes obtusely cuspidate. 



Var. decipiens (Bechstein).* Leaves elongated with acute bases, much resembling 



' These may be called, if their hybridity is considered to be established, Pyrus Ario-torminalis, Garcke, Flora von 

 Detitschland, ed. 17, 207 (1895). Fliche, in Mathieu, Flore Forestihe, 177 (1897), sums up the question thus: Fontaine- 

 bleau tree not a hybrid, near to Pyrus Aria, a true species, seed germinating readily and producing natural seedlings ; 

 Lorraine tree nearer to Pyrus torminalis than to Pyi-us Aria, a true hybrid, seeds rarely perfect. Rouy et Fourcaud, Flore de 

 Fratue, vii. 22 (1901), suggest that the Fontainebleau tree is a hybrid fixed and behaving as a true species. See also Irmisch 

 in Bet. Zeitung, 1859, p. 277. 



2 C/., however, p. 156, note 2. ' Pyius rotundifolia, Bechstein, Forstboianik, 152 and 316, t. 5, 1843. 



* Pyrus ilecipiens, Bechstein, lo(. at. 152 and 321, t. 7. 



