Pear Trees
Pear Tree
The pear is a fruit tree of genus Pyrus and also the name of the tree's edible pomaceous fruit. The pear is classified in subtribe Pyrinae within tribe Pyreae. The apple, which it resembles in floral structure, is also a member of this subcategories.
The English word "pear" is probably from Common West Germanic, probably a loanword of Vulgar Latin pira, the plural of pirum, akin to Greek api(r)os, which is likely of Semitic origin. The place name Perry can indicate the historical presence of pear trees. The term "pyriform" is sometimes used to describe something which is "pear-shaped".
The pear may be readily raised by sowing the pips (seeds) of ordinary cultivated or of wilding kinds, these forming what are known as free or pear stocks, on which the choicer varieties are grafted for increase. For new varieties the flowers can be cross-bred to preserve or combine desirable traits. The fruit of the pear is produced on spurs, which appear on shoots more than one year old.
Fruti Tree
A fruit tree is a tree bearing fruit that is consumed or used by people - all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovary of a flower containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term 'fruit tree' is limited to those that provide fruit for human food. Types of fruits are described and defined elsewhere, but would include fruit in a culinary sense as well as some nut bearing trees, like walnuts.
The scientific study and the cultivation of fruits is called pomology, which divides fruits into groups based on plant morphology and anatomy. Some of those groups are: Pome fruits, which include apples and pears; and stone fruits which include peaches/nectarines, almonds, apricots, plums and cherries.
Pear Tree Botany
Pears are native to coastal and mildly temperate regions of the Old World, from western Europe and north Africa east right across Asia. They are medium sized trees, reaching 10-17 m tall, often with a tall, narrow crown; a few species are shrubby. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 2-12 cm long, glossy green on some species, densely silvery-hairy in some others; leaf shape varies from broad oval to narrow lanceolate. Most pears are deciduous, but one or two species in southeast Asia are evergreen. Most are cold-hardy, withstanding temperatures between -25 °C and -40 °C in winter, except for the evergreen species, which only tolerate temperatures down to about -15 °C. The flowers are white, rarely tinted yellow or pink, 2-4 cm diameter, and have five petals. Like that of the related apple, the pear fruit is a pome, in most wild species 1-4 cm diameter, but in some cultivated forms up to 18 cm long and 8 cm broad; the shape varies in most species from oblate or globose, to the classic pyriform 'pear-shape' of the European Pear with an elongated basal portion and a bulbous end.
The fruit is composed of the receptacle or upper end of the flower-stalk (the so-called calyx tube) greatly dilated. Enclosed within its cellular flesh is the true fruit: five cartilaginous carpels, known colloquially as the "core". From the upper rim of the receptacle are given off the five sepals, the five petals, and the very numerous stamens.