THE PEAR 131 
derived all cultivated Pears from three species: P. 
per'sica, the ancestral form of the Bergamot Pears; 
P. eleagnifolia Pall, the Oleaster-leaved Pear of 
the Caucasus and Asia Minor; and P. sinen’sis, the 
Sandy or Snow Pear of China and the gardens of 
India and Japan. Professor Decaisne, however, re- 
cognised six races, descended from a single species : 
the Mongolic, represented by P. sinensis; the Indian, 
including P. variolo’sa and others ; the Pontic, repre- 
sented by P. eleagnifolia ; the Hellenic, including 
P. parviflora, a red-flowered form occurring in Crete, 
P. sina‘ica, which is perhaps identical with P. per- 
sica, the Wild Bergamot Pear, and others, such 
perhaps as P. nivalis Jacq., the Snowy-leaved species 
of the Austrian Alps, from which some of the culti- 
vated sorts used in France in the manufacture of perry 
are probably derived; the Germanic, including our 
two commoner forms, P. A’chras Gaertn. and P. 
Pyras'ter Borkh. ; and lastly, the Keltic, represented 
by P. corda‘ta Desv., formerly known as Briggs‘it 
Bosw.-Syme. 
This last-mentioned form, with leaves which are 
heart-shaped at the base, and almost smooth, and 
with very small globose, Apple-like fruit, is most in- 
teresting, as occurring in a wild state in Devonshire, 
Cornwall, and Brittany, and as, in the opinion of com- 
petent authorities, being perhaps the “ Apples” of the 
“ Inis yr Avalon ”—the Isle of Apples in the Arthurian 
traditions. 
Pliny describes the varieties of Pear in cultivation 
in his time as exceedingly numerous, including both 
early and winter sorts, and mentions thirty-two; 
