186 TREATISE ON FRUIT TREES. 



It's then a poor quality pear, as la Quintinye has well noted. 



Its flesh is soft, delicate, & very nicely buttery. 



The juice is sweet, musky, & has a very pleasant flavor. 



The seeds are light brown, very long, and quite full. 



This pear ripens in November & sometimes keeps until the end of January. It's 

 rarely musky, but nonetheless if it's in good condition, it's an extremely good fruit. 



LXV. PEAR TREE, with medium-sized somewhat oval white autumn fruit. 



AMBRETTE. (PL XXXI.) [Translator's note: an ancient dessert pear, so-named because 

 its scent is similar to that of the Ambrette, or musk mallow flower. It may also be the Myrapia, the 

 aromatic myrrh- or musk pear, mentioned by Pliny. 



This tree has thorny branches. It's grafted on wild stock & even better on the 

 quince tree. It prefers warm & dry soil & a good exposure in open ground as a tall 

 standard tree rather than on espalier or as a bush tree. Rainy, damp, and cold years make 

 its fruit much less desirable. So cultivating it requires the same care as that for the one 

 above. 



The shoots are short, well rounded & straight, a light gray-green on the shaded 

 side and flax-gray on the side in the sun. 



The buds are big, rounded, very sharply pointed, free of the branch and held on 

 stems that are not very prominent. 



The leaves are average-sized, two inches eight lignes long, twenty-two lignes 

 wide and are not denticulate. They fold along the central vein & it curves downward. The 

 petioles are nineteen lignes long. 



The flowers are fourteen lignes in diameter. The petals are oval and concave 

 spoonlike. The tips of the stamens are light purple mingled with white. 



The fruit is medium-sized. It has a pleasing shape; it's rounded and it gets a little 

 smaller near the stalk. The latter is thick, nine lignes long, and inserts into a very small 

 indentation 



