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Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
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'× Sorbopyrus auricularis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
A deciduous tree, 20 to 40 ft high (sometimes 50 to 60 ft), forming a rounded bushy head; young branches more or less covered with loose down. Leaves ovate or oval, 3 to 4 in. long, 2 to 21⁄2 in. wide, pointed, irregularly and coarsely, sometimes doubly toothed, rounded or rather heart-shaped at the base, upper surface covered at first with loose down which falls away as the season advances, lower surface permanently grey-felted; stalk 1 to 11⁄2 in. long, woolly. Flowers white, 3⁄4 to 1 in. across, produced about mid-May in many-flowered corymbs 2 to 3 in. across; anthers rosy red; calyx with its triangular lobes covered with a conspicuous pure white wool. Fruit pear-shaped, 1 to 11⁄4 in. long and wide, red, each on a stalk 1 to 1⁄2 in. long, with sweet, yellowish flesh.
This interesting and remarkable tree is a hybrid between the common whitebeam (Sorbus aria) and the pear (Pyrus communis). It is said to have originated at Bollwyller, in Alsace, and is first mentioned by J. Bauhin in 1619 and figured by him in 1650. For three hundred years it has been propagated by grafts, for it produces very few fertile seeds, and these do not come true. The finest tree recorded in Britain grew at Bramford Hall, Ipswich, which, according to information received from Lady Loraine in 1904, was then over 60 ft high.