Little known in America, this is one of the standard winter pears
in England. The fruits are exceedingly sugary, mildly spiced with
cinnamon, a flavor so unique, especially when compared with the piquant
flavor most common in winter pears, that the variety is worth growing
where it succeeds for the sake of diversity. The chief fault of the
variety is variability of product. On unsuitable soils and under
indifferent care, the pears are unattractive and poor in quality. The
accompanying illustration, it is to be feared, shows the variety at its
worst rather than at its best, since it does not thrive on the heavy,
cold clay of the Station lands. Under conditions at this Station, the
flesh is crisp and gritty, rather than buttery and fine as it seems
to be under more suitable conditions. The trees are very vigorous
on standard stocks and heavy soils, with the result that the fruits
are many but small and poor; checking vigor by dwarfing on quince or
planting on poor soil suits the variety. The trees are hardy and as
free as the average pear from blight. The variety is a good winter sort
for home or market.
This variety was raised in 1758 at Mons by the Abbé Hardenpont, the
Belgian priest and horticulturist. Extensively cultivated in Belgium,
it acquired a great diversity of names in different localities.
From that country it passed first to Germany toward the end of the
eighteenth century, and early in the nineteenth was taken to France.
Soon after the close of the Napoleonic wars, about 1817, it was
received in England. Within a few years after its introduction in
England, the variety found its way to America where, for a time, it was
quite extensively grown. The American Pomological Society added Passe
Colmar to its fruit-list in 1862 but dropped it in 1899.
Tree medium in size, vigorous, upright, tall, rapid-growing,
productive; trunk slender; branches medium in thickness and
smoothness, reddish-brown almost entirely overspread with thick, gray
scarf-skin, marked by large, conspicuous lenticels; branchlets thick,
long, light brown mingled with green, dull, smooth, pubescent only
near the ends of the new growth, sprinkled with few small, raised,
inconspicuous lenticels.
Leaf-buds short, plump, free, thick at the base; leaf-scars with
prominent shoulders. Leaves 3 in. long, 1-1/2 in. wide, leathery;
apex taper-pointed; margin tipped with few small glands, finely
serrate to nearly entire; petiole 2 in. long, glabrous, pinkish-green.
Flower-buds small, short, thick, conical, plump, free, singly as
lateral buds or on very short spurs; flowers late, showy, 1-3/4 in.
across, unusually large, in dense clusters, average 6 buds in a
cluster; pedicels 3/4 in. long, thick, thinly pubescent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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