Drive into pretty much any neighborhood in the Wilmington area in late winter or early spring and you’re likely to see ornamental trees in yards and along streets covered with blooming white flowers.
The Bradford pear − and other varieties of the Callery pear family, officially known as Pyrus calleryana − is one of the earliest bloomers in North Carolina and even has some pretty fall colors. But to researchers and professional arborists, that might be the tree’s only redeeming qualities.
The invasive plant produces lots of fruit inedible to humans, is short-lived, cross pollinates with other pear tree varieties often creating thorny thickets of trees that overwhelm native species, offers little ecological benefits to native birds and bugs, and grows more fragile as it ages − not a good trait in a hurricane-prone environment…