Bradford Pear Demoted

In one short news story on the radio this afternoon I simultaneously learned two things:

  1. For the last 30 years, the Bradford Pear has been the official tree of Prince George's County, Maryland; and
  2. As of today, the Bradford Pear is no longer the official tree of Prince George's County, Maryland.

To make a long story short, here's a good, brief summary of the tree and its popularity:

Bradford pears are a variety of a pear native to Korea and China, Pyrus calleryana, which was first introduced to Western horticulture in 1908. The seedling which later became Pyrus calleryana "Bradford" was brought from Nanking in 1919, but it wasn't until 1963 that the USDA introduced the variety commercially.

The tree was supposed to be the perfect street tree, with profuse early bloom, a restricted pyramidal shape, and good fall color. So many landscapers, urban planners, and homeowners agreed with your assessment of this tree's beauty that today it can be found almost everywhere.

[Marc Montefusco, "The Pros & Cons of Bradford Pears", Frederick County Master Gardener Program, accessed 1 July 2008.]

They are indeed very pretty in the spring, especially by the dozens lining suburban roads, as they do in many places around here. Here are some lovely pictures of rows of Bradford Pears in bloom: one, two, three.

As the announcer said in his brief news story, the Bradford Pear does not age well. It seems that as they mature they become brittle and easily broken by wind or ice. We've been discovering that around here the last few years. Some of the streets in our neighborhood had Bradford Pears at their sides, but the last couple of years have taken their toll and we now have several fewer of the trees left.

Rarely does an entire tree get destroyed, however; more typically, a big branch, maybe half the tree at a time, will be split off. There was one tree just up the street that had been dealt such a serious blow twice in as many years so that all that was left was a six-foot trunk with this long, skinny branch-like thing growing out of it. I thought it had a lot of character, actually, but the home-owner apparently disagreed with me and finally cut the whole thing down.

It is a bit of a shame, really, because they are quite beautiful when they all bloom and during the rest of the year they have a very graceful shape. Alas, we seem to be left with only the red maples, which are nice enough trees but one can tire of red maples by the gross.

Posted on July 2, 2008 at 17.06 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Personal Notebook, The Art of Conversation

4 Responses

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  1. Written by chris
    on Wednesday, 2 July 2008 at 22.51
    Permalink

    OI!! what's wrong with red maples?
    – – yr canajun correfpondent

    [yes, there's willyum too, but red maples are native only from manitoba and east]

  2. Written by jns
    on Wednesday, 2 July 2008 at 23.14
    Permalink

    I adore maples, eh, but I'm more fond of a number of maples other than the red maple–at least, I think they're red maples–whose growth habits are not quite so graceful as others. Maybe we'll end up lucky and they're not red maples at all.

  3. Written by Bill Morrison
    on Thursday, 3 July 2008 at 00.10
    Permalink

    I suspect that the maple in question may not be the majestic Canadian maple, but a smaller ornamental Japanese variety. Yes? No?

  4. Written by jns
    on Thursday, 3 July 2008 at 00.26
    Permalink

    No Bill, these are the trees growing across the street and in our yard, full size native maples. I knew a silver maple when I was young and they are not silver. Possible Acer rubrum or maybe Acer saccharum, but the former is more likely. From this page of maple tree identification, red maple still looks most likely to me, since the leaves have a distinctive whitish tinge to the undersides.

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