Studies of trees in winter

by Annie Oakes Huntington

MOUNTAIN ASH
Pyrus americana

Page [170]

Chapter XIII
THE APPLE TREE, PEAR TREE, MOUNTAIN ASH, CHERRY TREE, AND THE SHAD BUSH.

Family Rosaceæ

The rose family is a very large order of trees, shrubs, and herbs belonging to temperate climates. There are numerous genera, including valuable fruit and ornamental trees which have been cultivated since the earliest times. Many of the species are so familiar that they scarcely need description in summer, but in winter the character of their buds and stems is less easily recognized, and unless the trees are well grown it is sometimes difficult to identify them.

Common Apple Tree Pyrus malus

A flat-topped tree, 20 to 40 feet high. The bark of the tree scales off in small, thin, brittle plates. The buds and the stems are small and somewhat woolly. The leaf-scars are alternate and inconspicuous, with three bundle-scars.

The low, flat-topped, broad-headed shape of the apple tree is so characteristic that it may be easily recognized in winter, even when there is no surrounding orchard to identify it. So strong in one’s mind is the association of blossoms with these trees, that even a bare old apple tree against a winter sky suggests the spring,—an apple tree always seems to be haunted by the ghosts of its pink blossoms. The literary history of this tree goes back to the mythologies of the Greeks, the Scandinavians, and the Druids, and it also figures prominently in early Christian as well as pagan legends. It has been cultivated for its fruit since prehistoric times, and there are hundreds of varieties of it in cultivation.

The wood is fine-grained, hard, and a rich reddish brown color. It is used for small purposes in turnery. The fruit, however, is the most valuable product of the tree, and cider has been made from it for hundreds of years. Its native country is uncertain, but it is probably indigenous to the Northwestern Himalayas and the forests along the Black Sea. It was introduced into Britain by the Romans, and it is widely naturalized in the United States.

The generic name, Pyrus, is the ancient classical name for the pear tree, and probably was originally taken from the Celtic word peren, from which the English word was derived. The specific name, malus, is the ancient classical name for the apple tree.