PYRUS COMMUNIS-PEAR TREE, 



CLASS, 1COSANDRIA ; ORDER, DI-PENTAGYNIA. 

 NATURAL ORDER, ROSACES. 



GEN. CHAR. Calyx, five cleft. Petals, five. Pome, inferior, 

 five celled, many seeded. SPEC. CHAR. Leaves, ovate, serrate 

 Peduncles, corymbed. 



This tree is a native of Europe, in every part of which it will 

 grow spontaneously, under the fifty-first parallel of North Latitude. 

 It succeeds well, to the great satisfaction of the agriculturist, in the 

 orchards of the United States; and is relied upon to flourish 

 wherever its neighbour the apple will grow. In a wild state its 

 branches are covered with thorns, but cultivation softens its 

 nature and turns the rough savage into a useful citizen, and the 

 sap that nourished its warlike equipment now is used in ripening 

 rich and delicious fruit. This well known and extensively culti- 

 vated tree, which is said to be thoroughly naturalized to the New 

 England soil, is of an elegant, pyramidal form, with obtuse leaves, 

 of a longish, oval shape, and minutely sawed around the whole 

 margin. The flowers, which are of a whitish red, sometimes each 

 color separately, come out in May, and are produced on the short 

 spurs of former years. The fruit is shaped very much like a decan- 

 ter, roundish and globular below and tapering to a narrow neck 

 above ; this is its general form, but there are some varieties that are 

 very nearly globular, others again the reverse and more cylindrical. 



