Wild pear

Pyrus pyraster is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree of the rose family reaching 8-20 m tall, with a rounded crown and a stout trunk bearing characteristically rough, blocky grey-brown bark. Younger branches often terminate in stout thorns, distinguishing it from the cultivated pear. Leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic, 3-8 cm long, dark glossy green above and paler beneath, with finely serrate margins and a long slender petiole that allows the leaves to flutter in the wind. Flowers are borne in dense corymbs of 5-8 in early spring, opening before or with the leaves; each flower is 2-3 cm across with five pure white, broadly elliptic petals surrounding numerous red-purple anthers and 2-5 styles. The fruits are small, hard, gritty, rounded to top-shaped pomes 2-4 cm in diameter, yellow-green sometimes blushed brown, very astringent until bletted. Native to deciduous woodlands, hedgerows, and forest margins across most of temperate Europe, it flowers April and May.