WILD CRABS 251 



oval fruit, of a golden color when ripe." Be adds 

 that the fruit of thi> Oregon crab "is eaten by Indians, 

 ami \va> used in early times for jelly making by the 

 white settlers." 



The wild apples of the Mississippi valley and 

 eastward have usually been distinguished into two 

 species, the Pyrus coranaria <»r garland crab of the 

 North, ainl the Pyrus angustifolia or Darrow-leaved 

 crab of the South. Within the last generation or two, 

 botanists and experimenters have occasionally called 

 attention to these crabs as the possible parenl 

 improved varieties, but nothing very definite appears 

 to have been put «>n record until th<- present writer 

 made an essay in this direction a few years ago 

 ("American Garden," August, 1 s '.H). in which two 

 new Bpecies or types of Pyrus were proposed, and in 

 which an '-Hon was made to discover the botanical 

 features of certain cultivated forms of them. At this 

 point we musl examine the botanical features of the 

 two old-time species of eastern crabs, and <>f the 

 prairie Btates crab, which was there proposed as a 

 distincl species. 



1. 'I'h-- wild or garland crab of the northeastern 

 - (Pyrus coranaria$ LinnaBus). Leaves short- 

 to triangular -ovate, Bharply cut-serrate and often 

 3-lobed, thin and hard, smooth, on long ami Blender 

 l>ut stiff and hard, Bmooth petioles; flowers large (over 

 an inch across), on long ( 1 ' - to 2 inches) and slender, 

 stiH', smooth <>r verj aearlj Bmooth pedicels, the calyx 

 Bmooth, or very nearlj »<>. on the outside. A Bmall, 

 slow-growing and spreading, thorny tree, growing in 

 glades from New York t<> Michigan, and even to Mis- 

 souri and Kansas and southwards, probably, '•> Georgia. 



