NAT. ORDER. 
Pomaceoe. 
PYRUS BOLLWYLLERI A NA. COMMON PEAR-TREE. 
Class XII. Icosandria. Order IV. Pentagynia. 
Gen. Char. Calyx, with an urceolate tube, and a five-lobed limb. 
Petals, roundish. Styles, usually five, rarely two or three. 
Pome, closed, five-celled. Seeds, two in each cell. 
Spc. Char. Leaves, ovate. Corymbs, many-flowered. Fruit, tur- 
binate, small, orange-yellow. Flowers, white. 
The wild Pear-tree, from whence have originated (by cultiva- 
tion) the various variety of fruits, together with the Wild Apple, or 
Crab-tree, are natives of this country, and belong to one family. 
The common Pear-tree rises from twenty to thirty -five feet in height, 
covered with a rough, gray, ash-colored bark ; the branches are firm, 
thickly set, upright, and in the cultivated state unarmed ; the leaves 
are simple, pinnate and terminal; cymes, many-flowered; bracteas 
subulate, deciduous. 
The Pear-tree is called poirier in French, birnbaum in German, 
and pero in Italian. In its wild state, the Pear is a thorny tree, with 
upright branches, tending to a pyramidal form, in which it differs 
materially from the apple-tree. The twigs or spray hang down ; the 
flowers in terminal villous corymbs, produced from wood of the pre- 
ceding year, or from buds gradually formed on that of several years' 
growth, on the extremities of very short protruding shoots, techni- 
cally spurs. It is found in a wild state in Britain, and abundantly 
in France and Germany, as well as in other parts of Europe, not 
excepting Russia, as far as latitude 51°, and nearly in every section 
Vol. iii —130. 
