Nevertheless, the crab has valuable qualities besides its beauty. "Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves," shouts the porter of King Henry's palace, "and strong ones. I'll scratch your heads!" (K. Henry VIII., Act v. sc. 3). Those golfers who have passed their meridian surely remember that crab was reckoned the only material for club-heads in the old days of hard "gutties." But there was no great store of crab-trees in the land; so when golfers began to become like the sand of the sea for multitude the supply ran out, and club-masters carved the heads out of beech. A tougher substitute has now been found in the American persimmon (Diospyros), but methinks our native crab would hold its own with any other wood if it were still to be had.
Probably the largest crab-tree in Scotland (if it still stands) is one at Kelloe, in Berwickshire, which Sir R. Christison measured in 1876, and found to be 50 feet high and 8 feet in girth.
The wild pear (Pyrus communis) is much more rare in Britain than the crab-tree, being found only in the southern English counties, and even there it is difficult to decide whether any pear tree is really wild or only a relic of cultivation. The timber of the pear, whether wild or cultivated, is very beautiful, and is one of the choicest for carved work; whereof a fine example may be seen among the panels in Windsor Castle.
The Gean Tree, or Wild Cherry
In discoursing about the hawthorn, I assigned to it the first place for beauty of blossom among our native trees, but in holding that supremacy it has a dangerous rival in the gean, or wild cherry, which, to quote John Evelyn's eulogy, "will thrive into stately trees, beautified with blossoms of a surprising whiteness, greatly relieving the sedulous bees and attracting birds." In truth, the verdict upon the rivalry of the hawthorn and the gean must be "honours easy," for if the fragrance of the first turns the scale in its favour in spring, the gean scores heavily in autumn through the gorgeous hues of its fading foliage, no other British tree, if it be not the rowan, equalling it in sunset splendour. Nor is the flower of the gean without a fragrance—more delicate and less powerful than that of the hawthorn. Elwes tells how the late Mr. Foljambe, of Osberton, when old and quite blind, used to cause his son to lead him out among the cherry trees when they were in blossom, that he might enjoy their scent.
Doubts have been expressed whether the gean tree can be claimed as truly indigenous, many writers (my friend Canon Ellacombe among others) accepting Pliny's statement (lib. xv. cap. 25) that the cherry was unknown in Italy till Lucullus introduced it from Asia Minor after his victory over Mithridates (B.C. 84), and that it was taken by the Romans into Britain. In support of this view may be cited the absence of any name for the cherry in old Gaelic, the modern word, sirist, being merely an adaptation of the Latin cerasus, just as an Siosalach—the Chisholm—is a rendering of the Norman name Cecil. The Scottish name "gean" does not help us, being borrowed from the French guigne. Nevertheless, Dr. Henry follows Bentham and Hooker in regarding the wild cherry as undoubtedly indigenous in parts of Great Britain.
Lucullus, indeed—proverbial for his love of good things—may well have brought to Italy some of the cultivated varieties of the cherry; but the wild tree seems to have established itself as far north as Bergen in Norway, in which province there exists a large wood purely of cherry trees; and Wilkomm reported in 1887 having found semi-fossil remains of the gean in Swedish peat mosses; wherefore let us give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and claim this pretty tree as a native of British soil. Anyhow, it is thoroughly at home in these islands, reproducing itself readily both by seed and suckers, wherever it gets a chance; and no tree should be made more welcome in our woodlands, both on account of its beauty and utility.