M. J. DECAISNE ON VAEIABILITY IN THE PEAE-TEEE. 



41 



races and varieties of pear-tree take on the pear-tree, but all do 

 not succeed on the Quince ; for example, the Bance *, Clairgeau, 

 Bosc, Duchesse de Mars, &c. When we wish to multiply these 

 varieties, and for want of the wild pear we are obliged to employ 

 the Quince, the last is grafted on the Jaminette, the Sucre-vert, 

 the Crassane, the Abbeville, very vigorous species, which are 

 suited to this sort of stock ; and when the grafts have taken, they 

 receive in their turn varieties whose sap does not sympathise with 

 those of the Quince. It is an operation known and practised by 

 all nurserymen. 



The relative size of the flowers and appearance of the foliage 

 offer no less striking variations. Certain varieties, as the Catillac, 

 St. Gall, Epargne, de Yallee, &c, together with wide, rounded 

 and undulated petals, have blossoms 5 or 6 centimetres (from 

 about 2 to 2^- inches) broad ; and their trees, in the early stage of 

 foliage, are as white and cottony as the Sauger. Others, like the 

 Heric, Sylvange, Fortunee, &c, with oval or lanceolate petals, have 

 flowers half the size, their diameter not exceeding 3 centimetres 

 inch). Finally, we possess at the Museum a pear-tree 

 wrongly named Chartreuse, whose linear-lanceolate petals are 

 scarcely 3 millimetres (scarcely ^ inch) broad and 9 millimetres 

 (about f inch) long. It is vain, therefore, to seek for specific 

 characters in the proportions of the flower or the parts of which 

 it is made up. 



Can characters, however, be found in the size and form of the 

 fruit ? We have already seen these elements vary in the experi- 

 ments detailed above, and these were confined to four varieties, of 

 which a few trees only have borne fruit. The variations would 

 have been far greater had I been able to try all the known va- 

 rieties of pear-tree. We may judge of the enormous differences 

 which occur in respect of size, when I call to mind that the wild 

 pears, which botanists have somewhat prematurely called Pyrns 

 longipes and Pyrus azarolifera, do not exceed the size of a pea, 

 while our enormous pears called Poires d' Amour and de Livre 

 equal in volume a middle-sized melon — that is, twelve or fifteen 

 hundred times as much. Analogous remarks may be made as to 

 the colour of the flesh, which is green, yellow, salmon-coloured 

 or red. 



But perhaps it may be said these are precisely characters 



* At least, if they do succeed, though they may bear abundantly, the fruit is 

 extremely small, as, for example, in the Beurre Ranee, and scarcely to be recog- 

 nized when compared with well-grown samples. — Ed. 



