In a valley near the town of Blackball on the West Coast, there lies an unusual pear tree. It is literally lying there, as it blew over a few years ago in a storm. I’m not sure how old this pear tree is, but I would estimate at least 80 years old as a conservative estimate, but quite possibly substantially older due to the relatively poor soils at the site and the fact it was probably left to fend for itself for most of its life while bush regrew around it.
The current owner of the pear tree said the site was old Chinese mining tailings. It’s worth exploring this aspect a little bit I think as it could possibly be important context.
Chinese gold miners first began to arrive for the West Coast gold rush in 1867, and by the mid 1870s there were a few thousand Chinese gold miners on the West Coast goldfields. They were often treated poorly by Europeans and were usually only allowed to mine claims considered uneconomic or worked out, as well as often ‘encouraged’ to live outside of the European townships. Not all Chinese arrivals came to mine – many were also market gardeners, merchants or launderers. Most intended to return home after making their fortunes. Chinese miners were still a large presence in Blackball by 1890, probably being the largest group of the approximately 100 residents at that time. In 1893 the first coal mine opened near Blackball and continued for a number of decades, presumably with some Chinese miners working the coal seams. So there was a fairly substantial Chinese presence in Blackball for a number of decades.
To be clear, I haven’t been able to figure out if the origin of the pear tree coincides with the period of active Chinese gold mining, or whether it was planted much later, but it is interesting to ponder whether there could be a Chinese connection.
The fruit of the Blackball pear are described by the owner as being a small but otherwise classic European pear (Pyrus communis). She said the flesh was sweet and tasty, and I definitely trust her experience to judge this. Unfortunately since the tree blew down a few years ago, it has not yet fruited (although the tree is very much still alive), so I cannot give my own taste report.
The next few pictures show the size of the tree.
The owner also reported this pear tree to be self-fertile. Now as you may know, almost all pear varieties are self-infertile, and require cross-pollination to set fruit. I mentioned to the owner whether it’s possible that each trunk could be a similar looking but genetically distinct pear so that they appear to be the all one pear, but she didn’t think there were any differences among the fruit. We couldn’t rule the possibility out completely though.
She sprouted some seeds from the fruit (and grew those trees out too) and they seemed fine, so we can confirm that the tree is at least getting pollinated sometimes. The Blackball pear tree is also relatively isolated, and so I would consider it low likelihood that it’s getting pollen from a nearby pear tree.
Some pear varieties are able to set fruit without pollination (parthenocarpy), and that can’t be ruled out either (although as some seeds were fertile and produced varied offspring, it means that parthenocarpy cannot explain all of the fruit).
Most unusually though, this pear has burgundy coloured new growth, something that is very rare in European pear varieties.
The foliage when grown in shade matures shiny and dark green, and has an ovate leaf blade shape.
As I mentioned, there are very few European pears with such dark red new growth, and of those, most are either hybrids with Asian pears (e.g. Chinese white pear (Pyrus x bretschneideri) or are red-fruited sports such as red D’Anjou or red Bartlett sports. As the Blackball pear does not have red fruits, it is thus not a red-fruited sport, and so unlikely to be a pure European pear. There are quite a few European with pale red/orange new growth, e.g. Taylor’s Gold, but there is a large and seemingly empty gulf between those and the burgundy new leaves of the Blackball pear.
I asked two pear genetics experts for assistance in identifying this pear, and they were unable to offer much more than to agree that it very plausible this tree has Asian genetics, and to mention the red-fruited sports of European pears. I asked a friend very knowledgeable with obscure European heritage pears, and he also didn’t know of any varieties with such red leaves and agreed it was probably a hybrid.
So I think the most plausible hypothesis (without any further information, such as genetic testing) is that the Blackball pear has some Asian pear genetics.
It is perhaps possible that this was a seedling pear grown from a discarded European pear fruit bought locally 100~ years ago, that was randomly pollinated by an Asian pear back at the orchard. However my understanding is that Asian pears were few and far between in New Zealand 100~ years ago, and even now with nashis widespread across the country, there are few to no hybrid pears being found.
So perhaps it is more likely that this pear tree came from an existing hybrid pear? It’s worth investigating hybrid pears then to look for similar varieties. There are approximately three eras of hybrids between European pears and Asian pears – the modern era, the recent era and the ancient era – from what I can tell.
The modern era is dominated by the work of the former Plant & Food Research (now merged into the New Zealand Institute for Bioeconomy Science). They embarked on a large breeding program to create interspecific hybrid pears between Asian and European pears. The broad goal for that project is to develop pears with the crisp texture of Asian pears and the aromatic flavour of European pears. The main success of this program to date is PremP009, which is sold under the trade name ‘Piqa Boo’. As the Blackball pear is predates this work by the better part of a century, this era is not directly relevant.
The recent era is dominated by chance hybrids and breeding program selections from the USA from the last three centuries. Fireblight was first observed in the late 18th century in New York. Over the next century, fireblight spread widely and threatened to wipe out all apple and pear cultivation on the East Coast. Asian pears such as the Chinese sand pear (Pyrus pyrifolia), known as nashi in New Zealand, Ussurian pear (Pyrus ussuriensis), and the now infamous Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) were introduced to the United States to provide fireblight resistant genetics. Chance hybrids between Chinese sand pear and European pear were regularly found during the 19th century, such as ‘Kieffer’, ‘Le Conte’, ‘Pineapple’, ‘Hood’ and ‘Orient’. These tended to be intermediate between the parents, with a more rounded shape and usually crisp flesh. In the 20th century, various universities and the USDA started breeding programs to develop fireblight resistant pears for commercial use. Hybrid pear varieties released include ‘Moonglow’, ‘Magness’, ‘Flordahome’ and more recently ‘Potomac’ and ‘Sunrise’. New releases are slowly being released from these programs, but they are increasingly complex hybrids that have lower contributions from Asian pears.
The ancient era of hybrid pears is the least well understood, and is mostly represented by two pear populations – Pyrus regelli and Fragrant pear (Pyrus x sinkiangensis). Pyrus regelli is an apparently wild pear native to Central Asia, but it’s rare, little known and not cultivated.
Fragrant pear is one of the main cultivated pear types in China, and has long been associated with the Xinjiang region, in the North West of China. The Silk road passed through Xinjiang and so the region was a major trade hub for approximately 1500 years. Fragrant pear is a group of varieties that tends to be somewhat intermediate between European pear and Chinese white pear (Pyrus x bretschneideri), with some varieties having crisp flesh, and others melting flesh. In general the fruits are small sized, yellowish-greenish coloured, and with a characteristically long fruit stalk (pedicel). Sometimes the calyx can be persistent as well. Genetic testing results are conflicting, but results from China indicate that Fragrant pear is descended from cultivated (not wild) European pears, and cultivated Asian pears. Interestingly there is a historical record from about 2000 years ago of a Han dynasty diplomat, bringing over cultivated Asian pears to the Xinjiang region.
When I first read this description and saw the photos, I felt a few sparks fly. Could Fragrant pear be the explanation for the Blackball pear? Could a Chinese gold miner, over a century ago, have brought in some seeds or fruit from China, and long after all of their buildings had fallen down and become earth again, their treasured memento of home is still peacefully growing there?
The general appearance of the fruit and the flesh texture being more towards European, the long stalk, the red new growth, and the Chinese connection. Most of the Chinese miners who came to Blackball were said to have come from Canton, a fair way away from Xinjiang, but maybe it’s still possible?
Well, that is where the story ends for now – with questions and no answers. I will continue to research this pear and the local history, and I hope the answer is as interesting as the research. Regardless, we will propagate this pear locally to ensure that it can still be found here after another century has elapsed.
There is one thing we can roughly deduce from the Blackball pear, and that is by growing a few dozen seedlings we can look for either segregation (grouping into fairly distinct groups of offspring based on appearance), or uniformity. Segregation implies the Blackball pear has high heterozygosity, which means it is likely an F1 or F2 hybrid itself, which points to a more recent origin. If the offspring are uniform, it implies the Blackball pear has high homozygosity, which implies it is a long established genetic line from either a landrace or a species, and thus has an ancient origin.
If you’ve read this far and you know of any heritage pears with burgundy new growth – please do contact me, as that may abruptly end this mystery. And if you know of some very very old heritage pears in New Zealand that you believe have been overlooked, also please get in touch.
References
- https://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/68f94592-437f-4d5f-a01a-c53b096bee89/content
- https://shantytown.co.nz/attractions/chinatown/
- https://www.handsonhistory.co.nz/students/chinese-minners/
- https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/30309
- https://www.plantandfood.com/en-nz/article/evaluating-the-potential-for-genomic-selection-in-interspecific-pear
- https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2861&context=extension_curall
- https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1167&context=utk_agbulletin
- https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2024.1474143/full
- https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/callery-pear-bradford-pear-other-varieties-and-their-invasive-offspring
- https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=PRP18910124.2.4.2&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5996476/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7466967/
- https://www.actahort.org/books/1308/1308_1.htm
- Korban SS, editor. The Pear Genome. Springer International Publishing; 2019 Jul 3.
- https://www.asianflora.com/Rosaceae/Pyrus-sinkiangensis.htm
