Volume 46 Number 4 Article 15
Year 1992 Month 10
Title: Pears from the Past Preserved for Posterity
Author: J. Postman
Abstract:
The pear originated on the Eurasian Continent, and has been cultivated for
three thousand years.
Approximately 250 cultivars over 100 years old are
being maintained today at the Plant Germplasm Repository in Corvallis.
At least 15 cultivars are over four hundred years old.
Scionwood is available for research and evaluation.
Although many other ancient cultivars have been lost, their genes are still with us in the improved varieties and sports that are their descendants.
Many of the commercially important pear cultivars grown today originated in earlier centuries. 'Bartlett', perhaps the most widely grown pear in the western world, originated in the late 1700's.
Many of these old cultivars have numerous synonyms and alternate spellings.
In the lists that follow, cultivars that are widely grown around the world today are underlined.
Not included here are many Asian and East European varieties that are very ancient, but whose history we have not yet explored.
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