Pyrus.] ROSACE Ji. 165 



A tree, in some places of 30 — 60 feet in height, of a fastigiate or pyramidal 

 form, the hianches at first erect, afterwards drooping. Here it commonly foi-ms 

 a bushy very rigid shrnb, of 6 — 8 feel high, branched from the base, the hurk of a 

 dark reddish brown, the branches and lateral leafy shoots ending in a sharp spine, 

 which disappears by cultivation. Leaves much smaller than in the garden varie- 

 ties, eiiher scattered or 3 or 4 together, on short lateral shouts, broadly ovate, 

 elliptical or nearly orbicular, finely, evenly and sharply serrated, when young 

 downy beneath and fringed with soft white hairs, afterwards glabrous, bright 

 shining green, turning black in drying, on rather long grooved petioles ; some- 

 times the leaves are quite entire, and otherwise variable in form. Stipules linear 

 filiform, in pairs, deciduous. 



2. P. Malus, L. Wild Apple- or Crab-tree. " Leaves ovate 

 acute serrated, flowers in a sessile umbel, styles combiaed below, 

 fruit globose."— Sr. Fl. p. 133. E. B. t. 179. 



/3. Leaves, petioles, calyx-tube and corolla very large ; petals broad, white 

 within, red outside ; fruit and fruit-slalks downy. P. M. sativa, Leighton, Shrop. 

 Fl. 627. Reichenh. Fl. Exc. 4067. Huds. Fl. Angl. /3. p. 217 ? 



Extremely common and truly wild over most parts of the island, in woods, 

 thickets, copses, hedgerows, and rough bushy places. 



/8. By the roadside between Aldermoor and Coppid Hall. (Vide Leighton, 

 Shrops. Flora, loco cit.) 



" Spring comes anew and brings each little pledge 



That still, as wont, my childish heart deceives; 

 I stoop again for violets in the hedge. 



Among the ivy and old withered leaves ; 

 And often mark, amid the clumps of sedge. 



The pooty shells I gathered when a boy : 

 But cares have claimed me many an evil day. 



And chilled the relish which I had for joy. 

 Yet when Crab blossoms blush among the May, 



As erst in years gone by, I scramble now 

 Up 'mid the brambles for my old esteems. 



Filling my hands with many a blooming bough ; 

 Till the heart-stirring past as present seems. 



Save the bright sunshine of these fairy dreams." 



Clare, Rural Muse, p. 129. 



A small tree or often a bushy shrnb, from 6 or 8 to 10 or 15 feet high, much 

 and irregularly branched, the branches short, spreading, the older ones lery rug- 

 ged and uneven, forming a roundish head. Leaves in fascicles at the ends of the 

 branches and of the numerous short lateral spurs, bright pale green and glabrous 

 or nearly so above, paler and finely downy beneath, sometimes tinged with brown- 

 ish red, variable in form and size,' ovate, elliptical or roundish, obtuse, pointed or 

 acuminate on the same branch, not at all lobed or divided, often a little shining, 

 finely and evenlv crenulalo-serrulate, the serratures often tipped with a small 

 gland or niucro. ' Flowers in simple, erect, terminal and lateral, sessile umbels, 

 leafy at the ba>e, large, white more or less tinged with a blush-red, pleasantly but 

 slightly scented, bright purple in the bud. Peduncles someyvhat compressed, 

 about an inch long, purplish, downy (or glabrous, Koch) in my specimens, mostly 

 beset with two or three wavt-like glands. Fruit in the specimens before me 

 nearly globular, clustered, on short downy stalks, yellowish green, with a '""Se of 

 red, umbilicate, downy at each end, but like the cultivated apple subject doubtless 

 to great variation in shape, colour and flavour. 



