Common Pear Tree Pyrus communis
A pyramidal tree, 30 to 70 feet high. The bark is smooth, and the branches incline to be thorny, especially when the tree has escaped cultivation. Smooth stems and small pointed buds. Alternate inconspicuous leaf-scars, with three bundle-scars.
As distinctive in shape as the apple tree, but in striking contrast to it, the erect pyramidal head of the pear tree is easily recognized in winter, and its small, pointed buds and smooth stems offer other points of difference. Like the apple tree, the pear tree has been in cultivation for hundreds of years and there are innumerable varieties. It seems incongruous that so small a tree should live to a great age, but Bosc alludes to pear trees more than four hundred years old, and Knight tells of several which date back to the fifteenth century.
The wood is heavy and compact, and is used in Europe by wood engravers and turners. A drink called perry is made from pears in much the same way that cider is made from apples. It was considered an antidote to mushroom poisoning by the Romans, and in England it is still taken, “after a surfeit of that vegetable,” according to Loudon. The pear tree is a native of nearly all the elevated regions of Europe and Western Asia. Like the apple tree it was introduced into Britain by the Romans, and it is widely naturalized in the United States.
Mountain Ash, or Rowan Tree Pyrus americana
A slender tree, or tall shrub, 20 to 30 feet high. Slender spreading branches with smooth bark. The twigs are downy, becoming smooth and brownish red in color. Large alternate leaf-scars. The buds are pointed, reddish in color, and gummy to the touch. The inner scales of the buds are coated with down. It has bright scarlet berry-like fruit, which remains on the tree through the winter.
A YOUNG BLACK CHERRY TREE
Prunus serotina
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The mountain ash is seldom associated in our minds with apple and pear trees, but it belongs to the same genus nevertheless, and has absolutely nothing in common with the ash tree, as one might suppose. The American mountain ash is frequently planted as an ornamental tree, although the European species is more often cultivated than ours. The buds of the European mountain ash are blunter and more downy than those of the American, the bark is lighter in color, and the berries are larger, but apart from these differences the trees can scarcely be told apart in winter.