Pyrus × Cydonia quince-pear ('Daniellii')

Survives zone 5 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Between pear and quince — aromatic; usually cooked.

Hardiness

Zone 5–8

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Oct

Mature size

Small tree 3–5 m

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Temperate

Native range

No wild range, and not a sexual hybrid at all: it is a graft chimera, raised in 1902 at St Vincent College in Rennes when a 'Williams' Bon Chrétien' pear was cut back to its quince stock and the shoot that broke from the union carried living tissue of both plants. Winkler named it for Daniel, the garden's director.

Status

Cultivated

Years to fruit

3–5 yrs

Growth speed

Slow to moderate

Spacing

400 cm (157 in) apart — about 16 m² (172 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Quince-like rather than pear-like — ovate 4–8 cm, toothed, rounded at the base and on very short stalks, the outer quince tissue showing over a pear core.

Root system

The rootstock's, always: the plant exists only as a graft, usually on quince, which gives a small tree with shallow roots that wants staking and steady moisture.

Fruit description

A pome intermediate between its two parents, yellow and strongly aromatic, crisp and juicy when fully ripe with a broadly pear-like flavour — pleasant, but poorer than a good pear. Usually cooked.

Propagation

Grafting or budding only. Because the two tissues are layered rather than genetically combined, seed cannot reproduce the plant: a seedling reverts to pear or to quince.

Pollination

Flowers as its outer quince tissue does, and quince is self-fertile, so one tree crops on its own. Seed is beside the point here — the plant is a graft chimera and can only be carried on by grafting.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.