416 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
that, though it has been known to attain a height 
of seventy feet. It assumes a pyramidal form of 
growth, and like the wild plum has thorns on its 
branches—a curious provision of Nature for the 
defence of these wild fruit Trees, a provision, how- 
ever, which, on both Trees, mostly disappears under 
cultivation. Branches, buds, and leaves are smooth, 
or unprovided with hairs or down of any kind. 
The leaves are singularly smooth and shining, of 
a dark rich green, roundly egg-shaped, and 
slightly serrated, with slightly pointed apices. 
The venation consists of a prominent mid-vein, 
with wavy branches directed from each of its 
sides to the leaf-margin, the reticulation of 
smaller veins being very wavy and irregular. The 
flower petals, borne at the apex of a jug-shaped 
tube, are pure white, untinged by any colour, the 
flowers being borne in little clusters. The fruit 
is in form similar to the cultivated varieties of 
Pear, but seldom more than a fourth of the size 
of the edible fruit. Wild Pears, which are green 
in colour, are unfit to eat. The seeds in the 
centre of the fruit, and surrounded by its fleshy 
substance, are enclosed in a five-celled, horny, or 
