Thus, Callery pears began to populate road right-of-ways, abandoned fields, and many natural areas including wetlands.ĭriving Ohio's highways this spring will reveal the genie is truly out of the bottle. Birds were then eating the small fruits and pooping out nascent pears far beyond the parent trees. better branch structure) and then cloned, were crossing. However, Teresa established that other cultivars originating from slightly different plants (e.g. 'Bradford' Callery pear was still largely self-incompatible. Teresa would play the role of Gabriel John Utterson in keeping with Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Teresa Culley (Professor, Department Head, Biological Sciences, University of Cincinnati) reported exactly what was going on in her ground-breaking paper, " The Beginning of a New Invasive Plant: A History of the Ornamental Callery Pear in the United States" published in 2007 in BioScience (see More Information below). We didn't recognize the fruits were a sinister portent of things to come. They were generally treated as oddities and we were mostly concerned with the increased mess beneath heavily fruiting trees. More and more fruits were showing up on the trees. However, many began to note that the "no fruit" feature of Callery pears appeared to be changing. Fast-growing pears planted in Devil's strips quickly produced tree-lined streets. Callery pears were the "go-to" tree for locations where other trees failed to establish and thrive. We said don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Of course, in an early manifestation of " we have an app for that," many (including me!) came to the defense of Callery pears by noting that newer cultivars such as 'Aristocrat' and 'Cleveland Select' had better branch structure. Soon, many street tree commissions demanded "no more pears." The wind damage was so common some arborists still refer to storms with high winds as "pear storms" because of the added cleanup. Arborists noted that the crotch angles were weak which resulted in a lot of storm damage. However, Bradfords revealed their Achilles heel as they matured. Adding to this, the trees were tolerant of a wide range of environmental insults it would grow almost anywhere. Infections seldom advanced beyond the fruit spurs and seasonal recovery was impressive. The icing on the cake was its tolerance of bacterial fireblight. It's why many of us still occasionally lapse into referring to all Callery pears as Bradford pears.īradford was an immediate hit with its snowy white flowers, lustrous green leaves, glossy-red fall color, and because of genetic self-incompatibility, it didn't produce fruit meaning there was no mess. The cultivar Pyrus calleryana 'Bradford' grew out of this plant breeding project and was the first Callery pear to be introduced into U.S. Although the crosses fared poorly relative to fruit pears, the USDA researchers made the serendipitous discovery that some crosses showed intriguing characteristics that could be of interest to the nursery/landscape industry. to provide an infusion of genes into fruiting pears with the goal to enhance fireblight resistance. The original Callery pears were brought to the U.S. The disease wreaked havoc on the common fruiting pear ( P. However, unlike many family members, Callery pears showed good resistance to bacterial fireblight. As with all pears, Callery pears belong to the rose family, Rosaceae. The species is named for a French missionary, Joseph Callery, who first collected the tree in 1858. It epitomizes the saying, " The road to perdition is paved with good intentions."Ĭallery pears are native to Asia. The Callery pear origin story is rife with unintended consequences at almost every turn. It's one of the best blooms in years and truly reveals the Jekyll and Hyde nature of this good tree gone bad. The current widespread floral display in southwest Ohio is just too dramatic to ignore. I've been taking shots of the field since 2010. The field is covered with escaped pears no trees had ever been planted there. I have hundreds of pictures including some that I've labeled "Field of Pears." It's a 13.5-acre former farm field along I-75 just north of the exit for SR 129. Last year, I vowed not to take any more pictures of blooming Callery pear ( Pyrus calleryana).
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