PYRUS, PEAR TREE. 209 



and not very free of the branch. Their stems are thick. 



The leaves are long & narrow, very finely, uniformly & not very deeply 

 denticulate and often fold along the central vein. They're three inches two lignes long and 

 sixteen lignes wide. The petioles are twenty-one lignes long. 



The flowers are fifteen lignes in diameter. The petals are oval and almost flat. The 

 tips of the stamens are light purple. 



The fruit is medium-sized, almost round, two inches three lignes in diameter & 

 two inches four lignes high. The stalk is thick & five lignes long. It inserts into an 

 indentation usually bordered by quite large bumps. The eye, small & closed up, is set in a 

 not very deep indentation. 



Its skin is quite smooth & gray even when the fruit is ripe. 



Its flesh is buttery, tender, and not likely to turn mealy. 



The juice is very sweet & has a nicer flavor than that of the yellow Doyenne. 



The seeds are small & light brown. 



This pear ripens at the beginning of November, usually about a month after the 

 other Doyenne, which is much inferior to it in quality. At first I'd thought of it only in the 

 sense that the gray Messire-Jean compares with the golden Messire-Jean, or that the gray 

 Beurre compares to the other Beurres, & I had thought that the differences with the 

 yellow Doyenne arose merely from the type of soil, the rootstock, or from cultivation. 

 But I had noticed in Chartreux & in several other gardens that it varied consistently in 

 size, in quality, in ripening time, & that there were quite significant differences between 

 the shoots, buds, and tree leaves with those same parts of the yellow Doyenne pear tree. 

 The gray Doyenne pear tree therefore must be 



