THE SERVICE-TREE 67 
not slower in growth than most species of the genus 
Pyrus. Its shoots are smooth and gummy, its leaves 
are pinnate, like those of the Rowan, but larger and 
with more sharply serrate leaflets, which, however, are 
free from all serration along the basal third of their 
margins. There are from eleven to nineteen of these 
leaflets and they are downy beneath when young, but 
become smooth and paler later on. The individual 
blossoms are as large as those of the Hawthorn, and 
cream-coloured, and have always five styles. Of the 
fruit there are two forms, pear-shaped (var. pyriform‘is), 
the more common, and apple-shaped (var. maliform’is). 
In France this species lives to a great age—perhaps 
upwards of a thousand years; its wood, is harder and 
heavier than that of any other native tree. It is a red- 
dish fawn colour, slightly veined, fine-grained, and sus- 
ceptible of a high polish ; but is chiefly in request for 
the teeth of mill-wheels, the screws of presses, mathe- 
matical rulers, turnery and coarse engraving. The 
fruit, which is known as “cormes” and is sometimes 
upwards of an inch long, is reddish, and is spotted with 
brown cork-warts, from which the English names 
“Chequers” and “Chess-apples” are applied to its 
allied species, P. torminalis and P. Aria. When 
unripe, this fruit is extremely austere, producing a 
very painful and lasting irritation in the throat; but, 
after it has been exposed to frost or has been kept for 
some time, it undergoes the fermentative process 
known as “bletting,” familiar in the case of the 
allied Medlar. As in this process the fruit not only 
becomes soft and eatable but also turns to a brown 
colour, it has been mistakenly supposed to be rotten. 
