396 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



strate, that we may add .by their introduction to the variety of our 

 odorous garden-herbs. They may also be subjected with advantage 

 to distillation. 



Pyrularia edulis, Meissner. 



Nepal, Khasia, Sikkirn. A large umbrageous tree. The dru- 

 paceous fruit is used by the inhabitants for food, A few other 

 species occur in Upper India, one on the high mountains of Ceylon, 

 and one in North- Am erica. The latter, P. pubera (Michaux), can 

 be utilised for the oil of its nuts. 



Pyrus aucuparia, Gaertner. 



Europe, Northern and Middle Asia, Madeira, occurring also, but 

 slightly altered, in North-America. The Ho wan and also but in- 

 appropriately called the Mountain-Ash. Height seldom over 30 

 feet. Succeeds still where ordinary orchard- culture ceases in 

 coldest regions. Wood particularly valuable for machinery and 

 pottery-work, also crates. Walking-sticks from this plant slender 

 but strong [J. R. Jackson]. A variety with sweet fruit, discovered 

 in Austria by F. Kraetzl, is a new acquisition. 



Pyrus coronaria, Linne. 



The Crab-Apple of North-America. This showy species is men- 

 tioned here as worthy of trial-culture, since it is likely, that it 

 would serve well as stock for grafting. Best grown in glades. Wood 

 nearly as tough for screw- work as that of the pear-tree [Robb]. 



Pyrus commnnis, Linne.* 



The Pear-tree. Middle and Southern Europe, Western Asia. 

 Well known even at the time of Homer ; and many varieties were 

 cultivated in Italy at the commencement of the Christian era ; 

 pears were available also to the lacustrine people of Switzerland, 

 Lombardy and Savoy, but seemingly not so extensively as the 

 apple. Prof. C. Koch regards the Chinese Pyrus Achras (Gaertner), 

 which is the oldest name for P. Chinensis of Desfontaines and 

 Lindley, as the wild plant, from which all our cultivated varieties 

 of pears have originated. The pear-tree is cultivated up to 10,000 

 feet in the Himalayas ; like the apple-tree, it sets no fruit in 

 tropical lowlands, but on the other hand it will bear a good deal of 

 frost, being grown in Norway to lat 63 52'. The tree attains an 

 age of over three hundred years, fully bearing. At Yarmouth a 

 tree over a 100 years old has borne as many as 26,800 pears in a 

 year : the circumference of its crown is 126 feet. A Huft'cap Pear- 

 tree at Hadley, in Worcestershire, yielded two hogsheads of perry 

 in each year for a lengthened period [Masters]. Pear-wood is 

 used by wood-engravers, turners and instrument-makers. A bitter 

 glycosid, namely phlorrhizin, is obtainable from the bark of apple- 

 and pear-trees, particularly from that of the root ; while a volatile 

 alkaloid, namely trimethylamin, can be prepared from the flowers. 



