A Pear With a Pair of Problems By George Brenn, MIAH, Four Seasons Landscape Nursery, Inc.
Callery pear spreads near a Martin County Indiana roadway. Martin County was once home to one of the earliest Bradford Pear nurseries, located near the present day Crane Naval Base. Ubiquitous. Merriam-Webster defines this as “constantly encountered” and “widespread.” To my mind, ubiquitous is a good term to describe a number of plant varieties seen in both residential and commercial landscapes. Those ubiquitous varieties would include Emerald Arborvitae, Goldsturm Rudbeckia and others. But the supreme entity on the ubiquitous list would have to be Callery Pear (Pyrus calleryana) and its many offspring, the most notorious of which is the Bradford Pear. The story behind Bradford Pear is an interesting tale of good intentions gone bad. What seemed to be a “nearly perfect” tree when first introduced to the nursery industry has become a nemesis in this 21st century. And the ultimate insult to any selfrespecting landscape plant will surely become the fate of the Callery Pear family: invasive species. The story begins on the West Coast of America. In the early 1900s, the fertile soils of Northern California and Southern Oregon had become famous for the production of European Pears (Pyrus communis). As time passed, the consumer demand for these delicious fruits grew, as did production. One single county in Southern Oregon reported their 1916 Pear production to be worth about $10 Million dollars (about $2.3 Billion in 2020 dollars). However, there was a very dark cloud on this horizon: fire blight. In that same year, 1916, a California nurseryman wrote that Pear production in the San Joaquin Valley, once known for excellent European Pears, had been wiped out entirely by fire blight. A plant scientist in Oregon had been working on the fire blight problem and learned that the Callery Pear, which came from China to the U.S. around 1908, was highly resistant to 20 The Buckeye
fire blight and might serve as a rootstock for the European varieties. However, to further his research, he needed more seed from China—seed containing the genetic code that made it resistant to the fire blight that was a death sentence to the European Pear varieties. Now we get to the really good part of this story, the part where the government gets involved. Contact was made with a man named Fairchild at the USDA’s Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction. Fairchild had been involved with bringing Japanese Cherries to Washington, D.C. He arranged for a “plant-hunter” from the Netherlands to travel back to China in search of Callery Pear seeds. The native Chinese Callery Pears were found in many locations ranging from dry mountain slopes to stream banks. Fruit production was quite sparse, and seed collection was laborious and time-consuming. The collected seeds eventually ended up in two locations: a test orchard in Oregon, and at the U.S Plant Introduction Station in Glen Dale, MD. Here, seeds were planted, seedlings harvested and replanted, and the element of time, so essential in understanding plant performance and adaptability, was given its due. We now move forward in time to the early 1950s, and a young horticulturist at Glen Dale named John Creech began to observe the Callery Pear plants growing there and to evaluate them for ornamental qualities instead of simply rootstocks. One tree, grown from seed acquired near Nanjing, was about 30 years old when Creech first evaluated it. He was impressed by its striking ornamental qualities, AND the fact that it was thornless. This tree had outstanding flowers, glossy foliage, was not troubled with insect or disease issues, and seemed to hold up well in storms. Creech was infatuated with this tree and determined that it held significant value as a landscape ornamental. He decided it should be named after a former Director of the Glen onla.org
