PYRUS LATIFOLIA, Service Tree of Fontainebleau
- Pyrus latifolia, Boswell Syme, Bot. Exchange Club Report, 1872–1874, p. 19 (1875).
- Pyrus rotundifolia, Bechstein, N.E. Brown in Eng. Bot. iii. ed. Suppl. 164 (1892).
- Cratægus latifolia, Lamarck, Flore Française, ed. i. 486 (1778).
- Sorbus latifolia, Persoon, Syn. Pl. ii. 38 (1807).
A tree, attaining a height of 60 feet in France, with smooth, grey bark, which becomes fissured at the base in old trees. Leaves broadly oval, with a broad, rounded, or truncate base and an acute apex; margin with small triangular lobes, decreasing in size from the base of the leaf upwards, dentate and mucronate, the sinuses opening between the lobes almost at a right angle. The leaves are firm in texture, shining and glabrous above, tomentose and greyish green beneath, with 6 to 10 pairs of lateral nerves prominent underneath. Flowers in moderate-sized corymbs, never long peduncled. Fruit globular, ½ inch diameter, smooth, reddish, marked with brown dots, flesh edible; containing two cells, one seed in each cell, or more often one cell with one seed, the other cell containing two aborted ovules.
The description just given is drawn up from Fontainebleau specimens; and trees absolutely identical are said to occur in various forests in Seine-et-Oise, Seine-et-Marne, Marne, Aube, and Yonne.
A series of forms,[1] however, occur in the forests of the east of France, in Alsace-Lorraine, Spain, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, and Bosnia, which differ slightly in the general outline of the leaf and in the colour and marking of the fruit; and these are supposed to be hybrids between Pyrus Aria and Pyrus torminalis, between which species they oscillate in the characters of the foliage and fruit; whereas, according to French botanists, the tree of Fontainebleau is a true species, as it reproduces itself naturally by seed; and, moreover, one of the supposed parents, Pyrus Aria, is not, according to Fliche, wild in the forest of Fontainebleau.[2] However, the differences are trifling; and it is convenient, in the present state of our knowledge, to treat these supposed hybrids as varieties of Pyrus latifolia.
Varieties
Var. rotundifolia (Bechstein).[3] Leaves broadly oval or suborbicular, sometimes even broader than long, truncate or rounded at the base, sub-obtuse at the apex; lobes obtusely cuspidate.
Var. decipiens (Bechstein).[4] Leaves elongated with acute bases, much resembling
- ↑ These may be called, if their hybridity is considered to be established, Pyrus Ario-torminalis, Garcke, Flora von Deutschland, ed. 17, 207 (1895). Fliche, in Mathieu, Flore Forestière, 177 (1897), sums up the question thus:—Fontainebleau tree not a hybrid, near to Pyrus Aria, a true species, seed germinating readily and producing natural seedlings; Lorraine tree nearer to Pyrus torminalis than to Pyrus Aria, a true hybrid, seeds rarely perfect. Rouy et Fourcaud, Flore de France, vii. 22 (1901), suggest that the Fontainebleau tree is a hybrid fixed and behaving as a true species. See also Irmisch in Bot. Zeitung, 1859, p. 277.
- ↑ Cf., however, p. 156, note 2.
- ↑ Pyrus rotundifolia, Bechstein, Forstbotanik, 152 and 316, t. 5, 1843.
- ↑ Pyrus decipiens, Bechstein, loc. cit. 152 and 321, t. 7.
