30 AMERICAN POMOLOGY. 



man ; but the latter class embraces by far the larger num- 

 ber of food-plants, and we are indebted to this pliancy, 

 aided by human skill, for our vari-ties of fruits, our escu- 

 lent vegetables, and the floral ore ,ments of our gardens. 



The native country of the apple, though not definitively 

 settled, is generally conceded to be Europe, particularly 

 its southern portions, and perhaps Western Asia : that is, 

 the plant known and designated by botanists as Pyrus 

 Malus, for there are other and distinct species in America 

 and Asia which have no claims to having been the source 

 of our favorite orchard fruits. Our own native crab is 

 the Pyrus coronaria, which, though showing some slight 

 tendency to variation, has never departed from the 

 strongly marked normal type. The P. baccata, or Siberi- 

 an crab, is so distinctly marked as to be admitted as a 

 species. It has wonderfully improved under culture, and 

 has produced some quite distinct varieties ; it has even 

 been hybridized by Mr. Knight, with the cultivated sorts 

 of the common Wilding or Crab of Europe, the P. Malus. 

 Pallas, who found it wild near Lake Baikal and in D.aouria, 

 says, it grows only 3 or 4 feet high, with a trunk of as 

 many inches diameter, and yields pear-shaped berries as 

 large as peas. 



The P. rivularis, according to Nuttall, is common in 

 the maritime portions of Oregon, in alluvial forests. The 

 tree attains a height of 15 to 23 feet. It resembles the 

 Siberian Crab, to which it has a close affinity. Tlic fruit 

 grows in clusters, is purple, scarcely the size of a cherry, 

 and of an agreeable flavor ; sweetish and sub-acid when 

 ripe, not at all acid and acerb as the /*. coronaria* 



' North Amciinin Sylia, NuUiill II, p. -25. 



