THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 75 
one hundred years ago until 1915 when Rehder, discovering that the true 
P. sinensis had been lost to cultivation, proposed the name P. lindleyi 
for one group and P. serotina for another group of Chinese pears passing © 
under Lindley’s original species, P. sinensis. 
This species comes from central and western China, where the fruits 
are used for food under the name, with that of other brown-fruited species, 
of tang-li. American pomologists are interested in the type species as a 
possible source of blight-resistant stocks for varieties of the common pear. 
Stocks of this species, however, grown on the Pacific slope have not proved 
satisfactory because difficult to bud, and very susceptible to leaf-blight, 
and because they are not as resistant to pear-blight as an ideal stock should 
be. Rehder, an authority on oriental pears, gives two botanical varieties. 
His var. stapfiana differs from the type in bearing pyriform fruits; leaves 
with less appressed serratures; and petals with attenuate claws. So far 
as now appears it is of no greater value to pomology than the type. The 
other botanical variety which Rehder describes, var. culta, is of great 
importance in pomology and must have detailed consideration. , 
PYRUS SEROTINA CULTA Rehder 
Rehder Prod. Amer. Acad. Aris & Sct. 50:233. 1915. 
P. sinensis Hort. Not Lindley nor Poiret. 
P. japonica Hort. Not Thunberg. 
P. sieboldi Carriére Rev. Hort. 110. 1880. 
5. LP. sinensis culta Makino Tokyo Bot. Mag. 22:69. 1908. 
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Cera Sa 
Tree large, vigorous; top spreading, drooping, open; trunk thick, shaggy; branches 
stout, zigzag, greenish-brown, with a slight covering of scarf-skin marked with many 
conspicuous, elongated lenticels; branchlets slender, with long internodes, brownish-red, 
tinged with green and with thin, ash-gray scarf-skin, glabrous, with many unusually 
conspicuous, raised lenticels. Leaf-buds sharply pointed, plump, thick at the base, free; 
leaf-scars prominent. Leaves 4} in. long, 23 in. wide, thick, leathery; apex taper-pointed; 
margin tipped with very fine reddish-brown glands, finely serrate; petiole thick, 2 in. 
long, lightly pubescent, greenish-red. Flower-buds thick, short, conical, plump, free, 
arranged singly on very short spurs; flowers with a disagreeable odor, bloom in mid- 
season, 1} in. across, averaging 7 buds in a cluster; calyx-lobes long, narrow, acuminate, 
glandular, reflexed, lightly pubescent within and without; petals broadly oval, entire, 
apex rounded; pistils 4 or 5, from a common base, longer than the stamens, pubescent at 
base; stamens 4+ in. long, with dull red anthers; pedicels 1% in. long, slender, thinly 
pubescent, pale green. 
Fruit ripe February-March; 2} in. long, 23 in. wide, round, slightly pyriform, 
irregularly ribbed, with unequal sides; stem 13 in. long, curved, slender; cavity acute, 
deep, narrow, furrowed, lipped; calyx deciduous; basin shallow, wide, obtuse, gently 
