Medlar (Mespilus germanicus)

Image: © Evelyn Simak Taken: 8 Jul 2017

The medlar is a deciduous fruit tree that belongs to the same family as apples, pears, quinces, loquats and hawthorns. Despite the species name 'germanicus', it is native to Asia Minor and to southeastern Europe, and thought to have been brought to Germany by the Romans. The fruit is picked in late autumn or early winter and then bletted, ie stored in a cool, dry and well-ventilated place on a bed of clean straw until ripe, a period which takes about three weeks. The French name for the medlar is cul de chien (dog’s arse); Shakespeare called the fruits “open-arse”; DH Lawrence in a poem referred to medlars as "autumnal excrementa". Like many medieval food plants, the medlar was used for medicinal purposes, its use being described in this poem contained in a 17th century book titled "The Englishman's Doctor": Eat Medlars, if you have a looseness gotten, They bind, and yet your urine they augment, They have one name more fit to be forgotten, While hard and sound they be, they be not spent, Good Medlars are not ripe, til seeming rotten, For meddling much with Medlars some are shent.

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