560 
size of large Duke Cherries, changing to a yellowish colour variegated with red, of a very austere 
taste, decaying like the fruit of the Medlar, and then more palatable. 
It is supposed to be a native of Siberia; and bore fruit in the botanic garden at Chelsea before 
the year 1760.* 
Species Small-fruited Crab Tree . (Pyrus Bag cat a.) 
This is a tree with even branches. Leaves like those of Cornus, ovate, finely serrate, even on 
both sides. Petioles the length of the leaf, at the base connecting two linear lanceolate stipules. 
Peduncles four, filiform, even, axillary, clustered, quite inferior, globular, smooth, small. Petals 
sessile, oval, concave, white, biggish. Stamens twenty, shorter than the pistils; which are shorter 
than the corolla. Fruit roundish, five-celled, red. Seeds in each cell two, callous. Calyx minute, 
© • 
deciduous.p 
Pallas describes the roots as striking deep, and throwing up abundance of suckers, the trunk 
scarcely three or four feet high, seldom thicker than the human arm, commonly twisted, covered 
with a rugged, ash-coloured bark, full of chinks; the wood whitish with grey stripes; the whole 
forming a spheroidal head, a fathom or a little more in height: the leaves ovate-acuminate, serrate, 
smooth, on long petioles, and somewhat pendulous; petioles subpubescent; stipules bristle-shaped, 
slender. Umbels from four to eight-flowered, accompanied with leaves, on very long slender even 
peduncles. Fruit a pome, the size of a small Cherry, on a long peduncle, globular, green but turning 
yellow, and more or less tinged with red; five-celled, with two oblong sharp seeds in each cell: the 
pulp is reddish with an acid juice, which is used for making Quas and Punch in Siberia, where it 
grows naturally, and is common about the lake Baikal and in the country beyond it, in Dauria, and 
as far as Ircut; but not in other parts of that extensive country: it affects the banks of rivers, and 
low spots near them; flowering in May, and ripening its fruit in August and September.J With us 
it flowers in April; and was introduced in 1784, by Mr. John Graefer.§ 
Species 8 . Sweet-scented Crab Tree . (Pyrus Corossania.) 
Umbel on smooth peduncles. Calyxes smooth on the outside; tomentose within. Leaves like 
those of the Apple, but more smooth, and more finely serrate.|| 
The leaves of this are longer and narrower, and are cut into acute angles on their sides. The 
flowers have a fragrant odour, perfuming the North American woods in their season. The inhabit¬ 
ants plant them for stocks to graft other Apples upon. 
Kalm says, that this tree is rather scarce in New Jersey, but plentiful in Pensylvania. 
Gronovius first remarked it in Virginia. They frequently plant it near their farms, on account 
of the fine smell which the flowers afford, somewhat like the Raspberry. They expand in the 
beginning of May. The fruit is small, sour, and unfit for any thing but to make vinegar of. It lies 
under the trees all winter, acquires a yellow colour, and seldom begins to rot till spring comes on. 
It flowers here in May; and appears by Furber s catalogue to have been cultivated here in ^[1724. 
* Miller’s Figures. 
§ Hort. Kew. 
Linn. Mant. 
|| Linn. Spec. 
$ FI. Ross. p. 23. 
f Hort. Kew. 
