Pear 



429 



II. PEAR 



GENUS PYRUS [TOURNEFORT] LINN^US 

 Species Pjrriis communis Linnaeus 



jS an inferior fruited escape from orchards, the Pear is found in woods 

 and thickets of the northeastern States. It is a native of Europe and 

 Asia, attaining a maximum height of 20 meters, with a trunk diameter 

 of 9 dm., and is the type of the genus Pyrus. 



The trunk is straight, its branches are short, stout, and ascending, forming an 

 oblong or conic tree; the small branches are frequently thorny; the bark is 5 to 

 8 mm. thick, shallowly fissured and broken into elongated loose dark brown or 

 gray scales; twigs stout, nearly smooth, brownish red, with small yellow dots; 

 winter buds blunt, rather large, and hairy at the tip. The leaves are alternate, 

 thick and leathery, ovate, elhptic or obovate, 3 to 8 cm, long, sharp or taper- 

 pointed, rounded at the base, margin finely toothed or entire, downy and hairy 

 margined when young, becoming dark green, smooth and shining above, paler 

 and smooth or nearly so beneath; the leaf- 

 stalk slender, nearly as long as or sometimes 

 longer than the blade. The flowers, opening 

 in April or May, are 4 to 5 cm, across, borne 

 on spur-Hke branches of the previous season 

 in few to many-flowered cymes, on slender, 

 usually downy pedicels 1,5 to 5 cm, long; 

 the calyx-tube is urn-shaped and downy, the 

 5 lobes as long as the tube, sharp-pointed 

 and hairy margined; the petals are white, 

 nearly orbicular, rounded, contracted at the 

 base; the stamens are numerous; the ovary 

 is composed of 5 carpels, with 2 ovules in 

 each cavity; the styles are more or less united 

 at the base and terminated by small, club- 

 shaped stigmas. The fruit of the wild tree 

 is a pome about 5 cm, long, its flesh dr\nsh, 

 sour, astringent, and permeated by grit- cells, 

 the carpels (the core) leathery, with two large brown seeds in each. 



The wood is hard, close-grained, and reddish-brown; its specific gravity is 

 about 0.82. 



The Pear as an orchard fruit is too well known to need further mention. 



The genus Pyrus contains about 12 species of trees or shrubs, all natives of 

 temperate portions of the Old World, The name adopted for these trees by Lin- 

 naeus is the ancient name of the pear. 



Fig. 375. Pear. 



