Fontenay

FONTENAY

1. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 38. 1883.

Jalousie de Fontenay Vendée. 2. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 396, fig. 173. 1845. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 68. 1862. Belle de Esquermes. 4. Mag. Hort. 20:135. 1854. Jalousie de Fontenay. 5. Pom. France 1: No. 44, Pl. 44. 1863. 6. Hogg Fruit Man. 303. 1866. 7. Mas Le Verger 3: Pt. 2, 157, fig. 175. 1866-73. 8. Leroy Dict. Pom. 2:295, fig. 1869. 9. Guide Prat. 64, 281. 1876. Birn von Fontenay. 10. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 215. 1889. 11. Lucas Tafelbirnen 87, fig. 1894.

The reader will discover no noteworthy characters in the description of this pear; nor does the accompanying illustration make the variety particularly alluring, although the color-plate scarcely does the fruits justice in either size or color. The variety is to be found in many old orchards in eastern America, but was long since relegated by pear-growers to the limbo of nurserymen's catalogs. The only reason for giving it a place in The Pears of New York is that the variety was once prominent, and references to it and comparisons with it are so common in horticultural literature that pear-growers are certain to want to know something about it. As the following description shows, the variety is but mediocre in tree and fruit.

Early in the eighteenth century M. Lévêque, an architect, acquired possession of an estate near Fontenay, France. A number of pear seedlings were growing upon this property, one of which was so good as to attract M. Lévêque's attention and he began propagating it in 1828. Later he distributed cions of the variety to his friends under the name Poire de Fontenay. Soon afterward the name was changed to Jalousie de Fontenay. Leroy took the variety to the garden of the Horticultural Society of Angers about 1835, from which place it was still more widely disseminated. It soon found its way to America where it gained early popularity. In 1862 the American Pomological Society listed this variety in its fruit-catalog under the name Jalousie de Fontenay, but shortened the name, in 1883, to Fontenay. In 1899, however, the name disappeared from this catalog and has never been replaced.

Tree medium in size, vigorous, upright, dense-topped, hardy; trunk slender, smooth; branches slender, brown mingled with green, partly covered with thin, gray scarf-skin; branchlets thick, long, with short internodes, light brownish-green, faintly tinged with red, dull, the new growth pubescent near the ends, smooth, with numerous, conspicuous, small, raised lenticels.

Leaf-buds very small, short, sharply pointed, free; leaf-scars with large, prominent shoulders. Leaves 3 in. long, 1½ in. wide, very thick; apex taper-pointed; margin almost glandless, finely serrate; petiole 2 in. long, variable in size, glabrous; stipules very slender, tinged red. Flower-buds small, short, conical, free, singly on very short spurs; flowers late, showy, 1½ in. across, in dense clusters, average 7 buds in a cluster; pedicels ¾ in. long, lightly pubescent.

Fruit matures in October; small, 2½ in. long, 2 in. wide, oblong-acute-pyriform, symmetrical, with equal sides; stem ¾ in. long, curved; cavity lacking, the flesh folded around the base of the stem, often lipped; calyx partly open; lobes broad, acute; basin shallow, narrow, obtuse, slightly wrinkled, symmetrical; skin thick, tough, smooth; color dull yellowish-green, netted and patched with russet, with a tinge of red on the exposed cheek; dots numerous, small, russet, obscure; flesh strongly granular at the center, tender and melting, very juicy, subacid; quality good. Core large, closed, axile, with meeting core-lines; calyx-tube short, narrow, funnel-shaped; carpels emarginate; seeds large, wide, long, plump, acute.

— U.P. Hedrick, The Pears of New York (1921)

Fontenay. See Beurré Gris d'Hiver.

— John J. Thomas, The American Fruit Culturist (1903)