Bio Diversity Park

Common Name : Pear

Hindi Name : नाशपाती | Scientific Name : Pyrus communis
Family : Rosaceae
Uses : It is used as a poison and a medicine and for food. Although the early spring flowers are beautiful and the fruit is attractive, common pear is normally grown only for its fruit crop and not as an ornamental. The plant is harvested from the wild for local use as a food and a medicine. Wild pear fruits are usually tart, becoming sweeter if stored. They are used in various ways depending on their gustatory qualities: they are eaten raw or dried, stewed, or used for making of drinks. A yellow-tan dye is obtained from the leaves. A light brown dye is obtained from the bark The wood is an excellent timber, valued by cabinet makers, but generally only available in small quantities. Like apples, pears contain cyanogenic glucosides in seeds, which can be toxic if eaten in large quantities. Pear juice has been found to cause chronic, nonspecific diarrhea in infants and children. This stems from the abnormally high levels of fructose and sorbitol relative to glucose compared to other foods Medicine: The same antibiotic-like substance (phloretin) found in apple bark is present in bark of pear.
Native: Europe to North Iraq
General Description:

It is a deciduous tree with a broad, oval crown or occasionally a shrub; it can range in height from 5 - 30 metres tall. A very variable plant in all its characters; including the size and shape of the crown; the presence or absence of spines; the shape of the leaves; the degree of pubescence, etc; but especially in the size, shape, and taste of the fruit. The plants often sucker freely, and can form dense thickets. n. The conical erect trunk bears small, reddish-brown, narrow-angled branches. The grey-brown bark has shallow furrows and flat-topped scaly ridges. Leaves alternate, simple, elliptic/ovate with a finely serrated margin, obtuse tips, 2.5-10 cm long and 3-5 cm wide, shiny green above, paler and dull below, glabrous. The petioles are stipulate and the buds are involute, with imbricate scales. Flower corymbose inflorescences, 5-7.5 cm wide, containing 5-7 showy white, 2.5-3.5 cm wide flowers, borne from terminal, mixed buds of short spurs, appearing before or with the leaves. The spurs are very short and lateral branches. The ovary is epigynous, or inferior, with the 5-carpellate ovary embedded in receptacle tissue, containing up to 10 ovules (2 per carpel); peduncle thin, 2.5-5 cm long. Fruit a pyriform (pear-shaped) pome with persistent or deciduous calyx, 4- 12 cm long, greenish colored, dry and gritty. Seed blackish, 8.4 by 4.8 mm, each with a thin layer of endosperm. It flowers around March-April, while fruiting occurs in July-September.