Medlar

The medlar is a tree and the name of the fruit of this tree. Its Latin name is Crataegus germanica, or "German medlar", but it is not from Germany. It grows in the Near East and South-Eastern Europe, and the Romans took it to Germany. Near the Caspian Sea, people grew the medlar about three thousand years ago. It came to Greece in about 700 BC and to Rome in about 200 BC. It was an important fruit plant in Roman and medieval times. But by 1600-1700, people started eating other fruits and not the medlar. Today people do not grow it very often.

Medlar
File:Medlar pomes and leaves.jpg
Foliage and fruit
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Order:	Rosales
Family:	Rosaceae
Genus:	Mespilus
Species:	M. germanica
Binomial name
Mespilus germanica L.

The medlar needs warm summers and mild (not too cold) winters and likes to grow in sunny, dry places. In the best places, the plant can grow up to eight metres tall. The medlar is deciduous: it is not green all year. Usually, it is shorter than a tree. It lives between thirty and fifty years. Medlar leaves are dark green, maximum fifteen centimetres long and three centimetres wide. The plant has flowers in late spring. The flowers are white. The red-brown medlar fruits are similar to apples and grow to two to three centimetres. They are very hard and acidic, and we can only eat them after the cold weather makes them soft.

Medlar Media

• Mespilus germanica ripening process.jpg

  Bletting begins on one side of the fruit. Bletted flesh is brown; ripe but unbletted flesh is white.

• Mispel jm55216 (cropped).jpg

  Mispel (Mespilus germanica), von denen es im Badischen noch tragende Bäume gibt. Alle Aufnahmen au dem Oktober 2015

• Medlars depicted in Tacuinum Sanitatis, 14th century

• Mespilus germanica2.jpg

  Species: Mespilus germanicaFamily: Rosaceae*Image No. 3

• Illustration Mespilus germanica0.jpg

  IllustrationMespilusgermanica

• Medlar rootstock.jpg

  Medlar growing on Hawthorn rootstock

• Mespilus germanica 007.jpg

  Common Medlar, bark; Botanical Garden KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany.

• Mespilus germanica Prague 2014 2.jpg

  Flower of tree Mespilus germanica from the Botanical Gardens of Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

• Nešpli.JPG

  Bletted (left) and unbletted (right) medlar fruit

• Mespilus germanica 01.jpg

  Ripe (bletted) and unripe medlar fruit

Other websites

Media related to Crataegus germanica at Wikimedia Commons