Woody Pear, Xylomelum pyriforme

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Yesterday, on our dog walk, we decided to take a slightly different route: doing 

so, we bumped into our near neighbour, a fellow pug owner named Damo. He 

was driving along Plateau Road in his 'down to earth' car, as opposed to his usual 

red Mustang convertible with Rocketboy usually taking the passenger seat to 

enjoy the breeze. No Rocky this time, and Damien stopped his vehicle in the 

middle of the road to ask how the boys were. I asked him about Rocketboy. The 

thing is Rocketboy has been very sick for some time now (he just turned 15), and 

everybody in the neighbourhood seems to be quite concerned about him. Rocky 

is still getting worse, but apparently he still wishes to be with us, so he's hanging 

on.

We actually wanted to take this route to see, if we'd find some more fallen 

Woody Pear seed-pods. We've got some two dozen already, but I'm collecting 

more for our artist friend Kurt, who wants to draw the shapes of them.

Apparently our area is the only place in Sydney region, where there Woody Pears 

are growing in the wild.

We were lucky - we found five pods, usually it's only about a few per year!

Here's one 'pear' still on the tree, outside Damien's place:

Damien is the lead singer of a band called The Celibate Rifles (he's also a well 

known sports commentator in Australia). Here's some information about the band 

and Damien on the ABC website:

The CELIBATE RIFLES BIO

Playing stripped-down, loud, and fast Ramones-inspired guitar rock, the Celibate 

Rifles were one of the earliest punk bands to emerge during the post-Radio 

Birdman/Saints era.

They exploded out of the gates in 1982 with a series of records (released in 

Australia only) fuelled by high-speed guitars, wah-wah-strangulated solos, and 

cartoon-ish, tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

Playing initially for crowds of hard rock-loving surfers, it didn't take long for the 

Rifles to develop a following especially for their 1985 release of Quintessentially 

Yours, a lengthy EP that was a collection of tracks from earlier albums.

Lovelock has also released a solo album (It's a Wig, Wig, Wig,World) with 

members of the Church.

Damien Lovelock with Rocketboy

Here's one 'pear' from our 'fruit basket':

They have two seeds in the woody pod, here's one we found that hadn't fallen 

from the pod when it split:

See here for a nice story about Woody Pears: 

www.anbg.gov.au/gallery/xylomelum-pyriforme.html

Edward Michen (1862-1913) Xylomelum pyriforme (Woody Pear)
from: 'The Flowering Plants and Ferns of New South Wales - Part 2' (1895)
by J H Maiden