PYRUS, PEAR TREE. 185 



and are attached to not very prominent stems. 



The leaves are about the same shape & have the same denticulation as those of the 

 Epine d'ete. When the tree is grafted on the quince tree, they're much smaller. They're 

 two inches four lignes long, twenty lignes wide, and slightly ruffled on the margins. The 

 veins are almost as prominent on top of the leaf as they are underneath it. The petioles are 

 about seven or eight lignes long. 



The flowers are fourteen lignes in diameter. The petals are long, pointed at both 

 ends, wrinkled & bent inward. 



The fruit is medium sized, oblong, twenty-six lignes in diameter & two inches six 

 lignes long. Sometimes it's bigger, sometimes smaller, depending on the soil in which the 

 pear tree is planted & the stock on which it's grafted. It's not very flattened at the top & 

 the eye there is set almost flush with the fruit. The end near the stalk gradually decreases 

 in size & comes to a very blunt point. The stalk is quite thick, ten to fourteen lignes long, 

 and a bit fleshy at its origin. Sometimes it inserts flush with the fruit and sometimes 

 between several creases & small bumps that form an indentation at the insertion point. 

 Frequently there's a groove, not very deep but quite noticeable, that runs from the origin 

 of the stalk up to the eye or along most of the length of the fruit. When this pear is 

 attractive & in good condition, it's three inches high by twenty-seven or twenty-eight 

 lignes in diameter. It's almost elliptical in shape and comes to a point at the end near the 

 stalk, whose origin is fleshy as though it were an extension of the fruit. 



Its skin is smooth, sort of satiny; it's a whitish green that yellows very slightly 

 when the fruit ripens. If the tree is planted in damp or cold ground or in a poor exposure, 

 the skin of the fruit stays very green & never turns yellow at all. 



