Photo: Dave Richardson (CC BY)
This pear tree remembers a poet's birthplace that no longer exists.
European Pear
Nobody planted these to be looked at. This page maps every european pear on the site, 5 so far across 4 cities.
A pear is an orchard tree, grown for fruit and replaced when it stops giving any, which is why four old ones spread across four countries is an odd list to be able to make. The oldest is in The Hague, planted in 1638 in the courtyard of an almshouse for women of unblemished character, and the residents have been turning its hard little juttepeers into jelly for something close to four centuries. Helsinki's is the last survivor of a manor orchard and is reckoned the tallest and oldest pear in Finland. Prague's, at around 190 years, stands where a demolished barracks once held the birthplace of the poet Jan Neruda. Warsaw's carries a name and an 1870 planting date that historians have taken apart piece by piece, and the tree keeps the name regardless.
Prague
The Hague
Elderly women living in this almshouse have been making jelly from this pear tree's fruit since at least the 17th century, and the tree they are picking from is very likely the same one their prede...
Helsinki
The last fruit tree standing in a manor garden that once grew many is also, by several accounts, the oldest and tallest pear tree in Finland.
Warsaw
A pear tree is a strange choice for a memorial, which is exactly why this one has stayed interesting long after the man it supposedly honours.
Warsaw protects a pear tree that grows out of a pavement.
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