PEAR WITH UNUSUAL LEAVES AND FRUITS - PASHIA

Last year, in winter, I bought pear fruits in a store. I chose the largest one. Sowed a seed in February, it germinated and the sprout developed normally. I planted a seedling in the ground in May. Now it is 65 cm high. The lower leaves are of the usual shape, but somewhere from a height of 20 cm, the leaves of several tiers have a wedge-shaped shape. The uppermost leaves, newly formed, are again normal. At the base of the leaf there are two more narrow crescent-shaped leaflets, both in ordinary and modified leaves.

What does it mean? Mutation? genetic memory?

I send different leaves from one plant.

© Author: E.P. Lifar, Primorsky Territory

We asked BN Vorobyov, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, to comment on an unusual phenomenon described by our reader.

There can be no doubt that these are the leaves Pashia pear (Pyrus pashia Hamilt) seedlings. The species originates from the southwest of China and has an extensive range along the southern slopes of the Himalayan mountains. In terms of time spent in culture, this is the most ancient species with more than 2000 years of selection improvement history. Now in industrial gardens in southwestern China and northern India, varieties belonging to this particular group are grown, and it is not surprising that the fruits of one of them ended up in Primorye.

Pashia pear is adapted to a humid and hot climate, not frost-resistant, resistant to fungal diseases. It has mediocre, in the European view, the quality of the fruit - there is no integumentary color (blush), firm juicy flesh without spices, but with a very characteristic refreshing aroma.

Although with regard to the latter, the Japanese, for example, hold the exact opposite opinion. In their opinion, European pears, considered the standard of quality (Williams, Bere Ardanpon), are inferior to varieties of East Asian origin, including the pashia pear.

The characteristic morphological differences of the pashia pear include the calyx falling off when the fruit ripens and the lobing of the leaves, but only on young plants. On mature trees that have entered fruiting, the leaves are entire (without segmentation), narrowly ovate, although the sharp-toothed type of serration of the edge remains a constant distinguishing feature.

Segmentation of the leaf blade is typical not only for the pashia pear species, but also for some other species of Asian origin (there are more than 60 species in the pear genus). For example, the Korzhinsky pear, which lives in the Pamirs-Altai and the Western Tien Shan, has whole leaves on adult plants, 3-5-lobed on coppice shoots, and pinnatisect leathery on seedlings. Another species - the almond-shaped pear of Western Asian origin - also sometimes forms 3-5-lobed leaf blades, but with solid, without jagged edges. Stable pinnately dissected leaves, resembling ragweed leaves, are demonstrated by another Pamir-Altai species - Regel's pear. All the listed types of pear with dissected leaves have so far been very little involved in breeding, therefore, in terms of the richness of the varieties, none of them can be compared with the pascia pear.

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Reference by topic: Why do pears blush?

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If we talk about the very split-leaved or even lobed leaf blades, then this feature is a sign of primitiveness in the entire subfamily of apple trees. This is primarily due to the adaptability developed over a long evolution to the harsh conditions of habitat in mountainous areas.

Such a trait is also characteristic of wild Chinese-Himalayan species of the Gan-sun, coronal, and Central Asian apple trees. In the arboretum of the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences there are specimens of these species, and the most curious of readers can get acquainted with them, as they say, directly. The same sign is also found in the "close relative" of the apple and pear - the hawthorn.

In the process of selection, the external appearance of the plant changed: the fruits became larger, the leaves became larger, the leaves thickened, segmentation disappeared. However, in a tree that has not entered fruiting, the sign of segmentation of leaf blades can manifest itself as a persistent atavism. For example, in Cinnamon striped and varieties that originate from it, or, oddly enough, in the American variety Lobo, some of whose leaves even become like currants. All this, as the reader figuratively suggested, is a manifestation of genetic memory, and not the result of crossing a pear with any other species.

The reader was also interested in small crescent-shaped leaves at the base of the petiole of the leaf blade. These are stipules. The size, shape or absence of them is one of the approbation varietal characteristics. So, for example, pear varieties Lada and Chizhovskaya can be distinguished from each other primarily on this basis - Chizhovskaya leaves with stipules, while Lada leaves have very few of them.

And the last - about the further fate of the seedling. Most likely, it will not be winter-hardy enough in the conditions of Primorye. Although there may be exceptions to this rule. Therefore, I advise Evgeny Nikolaevich at the initial stage to use the container method of growing in a large pot or tub, removing the plant for the winter on the veranda or loggia. That's just the first harvest still have to wait 7-10 years.

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Reference by topic: Choose a pear variety (photo and description)

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