Gerald Largen — How all those white blooming trees got here

These trees, now blooming in their thousands, are all variants of species of Asiatic pear (Pyrus) commonly called Callery pear. A great number of them can be credited to one man, Mr. Kent McClain, who owned and operated a large plant nursery in Knox County for many years, and who had acquired a farm bounded on one side by Bluff Road and the other by Bowman Bend Road, adjacent to Cap’n Allison’s farm on the down-river side. This Roane County farm’s fields were where Mr. McClain grew his trees and shrubs for his landscaping business, as well as the sales yard at the nursery.

As we understood it, Mr. McClain was one of the leaders in his business and a member of national organizations that promoted the introduction of new plants and new varieties of old plants, including the federal agency that does such things.

One of these new introductions of a new variety of an old plant sponsored by the federal agency was the Bradford pear variety of the wild Asiatic Callery pear. The agency saw that they had a ‘best seller’ with the Bradford, and with the end of the war and the G.I. Bill federal loan program stoking the building boom, new housing developments were springing up all over the country. So, the nurseries were given allotments of this Bradford plant and McClain took all of his and set out a whole row of the young plants along Bowman Bend Road, which he then dug up and sold.

But there were some of the plants in the row that for some reason or another were not dug up, but were left in the row and continued to grow. In just a few years, these trees were mature enough to bloom. And when they bloomed, they soon set fruit, and the little pears were about the size of a grape or a cherry, but each one was large enough to contain seeds. And after the birds, squirrels and other life forms had ingested and digested the little pears, they planted the seeds, some as a considerable distance from the tree which bore them.

Now, since the Bradford pear is hybrid, its seeds are not true, but are a genetic mixture from each of the varieties which make up the hybrid.

So, it is erroneous to call all of these “volunteer” Callery pear trees “Bradford,” but it is so common, that it’s doubtful it can be changed now.

But truly, one never knows what one is going to get from these volunteers. My personal experience has produced a semi-weeping tree, various columnar trees, a dwarf tree, an extra-thorny tree, a super-sized fruit tree, and probably others on the several acres which have become dominated by these volunteer Callery pear trees.

The National Arboretum, I think, has grown and named a couple more of these selected varieties of the mixed Callery, named Capitol and Whitehouse, both of which are a bit more columnar, and less susceptible to splitting than the other varieties. The ones which I planted of these two varieties, the last time I looked, were holding up very well.

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These spreading seedling Callery pears have not as yet achieved the nuisance stage of Kudzu, but they have the potential to do so. But sometimes what seems to be an invasion of some foreign tree or plant, turns out not to be. The river bank from Lick Skillet to Caney Ford a few years ago seemed aimed in that direction with volunteer Empress trees, but a cold snap a couple of years ago, at a susceptible time apparently killed all the young seedlings, as I have not seen one for some time as I have driven along this road. Apparently, Don Matthew’s big mature tree is the only one left to contribute the Empress tree’s aroma and unique color in this area.

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Although the Bradford pear and its origins in the Callery pear have become quite a nuisance in this area, watching the process from first introduction to present day excess has been both interesting and educational. In addition, on at least one occasion it has been highly entertaining. Here I refer to an incident which I wrote about some years ago, and which I think bears repeating.

I set out a row of volunteer seedlings that had come up courtesy of the birds from Mr. McClain’s original Bradford trees upriver on Bowman Bend Road. These seedlings were on either side of the lane leading some distance up to the road where our mail box and newspaper box are located. As I have said earlier, the seedling trees are not true to the Bradford hybrid and so these trees have all manner of characteristics, one in particular being the size of little pears they bear. While most of them are about the size of a cherry or a grape, a couple of them on the lane are almost the size of a wild crabapple.

One this particular occasion, in the autumn, these larger pears kept hanging on the tree, even after some frost. I was, as usual, walking up to the mailbox and I noticed that the birds were acting in a very strange manner. Some were fluttering in the trees, apparently eating the pears; some were stumbling on the ground, and all were acting very un-birdlike.

I stopped and watched a moment or so, and concluded pretty quickly that my birds were as drunk as skunks! Examination of a couple of the pears confirmed my suspicions. Somehow, the pears had hung on the tree and fermented their sugars into alcohol sufficient to intoxicate the birds, but apparently it was not sufficient to hurt them, although I suspect some of them may have had first rate hangovers.

I have never seen this phenomenon again, neither the fermented pears, nor the inebriated fowls, which is as it should be.