444 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
tered hairs of the opening leaves, gives a delicate beauty to this 
early welcome promise of the woods. 
Dr. Darlington says that the fruit is considerably improved 
in size and quality by long culture. 
A tree of this species standing near the comb manufactory in 
Chester, measured five feet seven inches in circumference, at 
five feet from the ground. 
The second variety has been called the Swamp Pyrus; Swamp 
Suear Pear; A. ovdlis. The leaves are oval oblong, finely and 
sharply serrate, and finely acuminate, downy on both surfaces 
when young, very downy and white beneath ; petioles, pedun- 
cles and calyx covered with a silken down; stipules slender, 
linear; segments of the calyx acute, cillate; petals obovate, 
twice as long as the calyx, more persistent than in the last 
variety. 
This is a smaller tree than the preceding, but sometimes rises 
to twelve or fifteen feet. It is usually, however, a shrub It has 
a great resemblance to it, so that many botanists, and, among 
them, Dr. Torrey and Dr. Hooker, are disposed to consider it a 
variety of the same species. It cannot be easily determined what 
constitutes a specific difference, and what should be regarded 
as only an accidental variation. The points of distinction in 
this plant, however, are more numerous and more marked than 
are to be found between many nearly allied species in other 
genera. ‘The leaves, when just opening, are completely invest- 
ed, on the under surface, with a close, velvety, whitish down, 
while those of the Botryapium have only a few silken hairs; 
and a similar difference, not so marked, may be observed in the 
inflorescence. “The leaves are less sharply serrated, the serra- 
tures being sometimes hardly visible. The racemes are longer, 
closer and more erect than in the foregoing, and the petals of 
the corolla more distinctly obovate. It usually occurs in low, 
moist grounds, and is one of the earliest and most conspicuous 
ornaments of swampy woods. The fruit is more juicy and 
agreeable than that of the former. Still there is not in the fruit 
a tithe of the difference which we observe between apples from 
the same orchard, and growing on trees which sprung from 
seeds of the same fruit. 
