Calyx 5-fidus. Petala 5. Bacca infera, 5-sperma.
Calyx 5-cleft. Petals 5. Berry below, 5-seeded.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Mespilus floribus bracteatis; foliis pinnatifidis; laciniis argutè serratis, pubescentibus.
Mespilus with bracts to the flowers; the leaves wing-cleft, with the divisions sawed and downy.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement and pointals.
2. A branch with ripe fruit.
Neither is this species enumerated in the works of Linnæus. The great French botanist Tournefort, who discovered it on the mountains of Anatolia in 1701, thus describes it: “These mountains produce a fine sort of Azarolíer or Medlar-tree; there are some as big as oaks. Their trunk is covered with a cleft grayish bark; the branches are bushy, and spreading out on the sides; the leaves are in bunches two inches and a half long, fifteen lines broad, shining, a little hairy on both sides, commonly divided into three parts even to the rib, and these parts indented very neatly on the edges, pretty much like the leaves of tansy; the part at the end of the leaf is again divided into three parts. The fruit grow two or three together at the end of the young shoots, and resemble small apples of an inch diameter with five roundings like the ribs of a melon, a little hairy, pale green inclining to a yellow, with a navel raised of five leaves. We sometimes find one or two of these leaves growing out of the flesh of the fruit, or its stalk. The fruit though agreeable is not so pleasant as our Medlar, but I believe it would be excellent if it were cultivated. The Armenians not only eat as much of this as they can, but likewise fill their bags. The short period the tree has been introduced (not above 20 years, as we are informed) will not allow any in England, as yet, to have reached the size above mentioned; and we much doubt whether it may be thought worthy of cultivation here for the fruit: but the beauty of the tree and agreeable fragrance of the blossoms sufficiently recommend it to a place in the pleasure-garden. This and the last described species with the artificial characters of the genus Mespilus have all the natural habits of Cratægus, and show how ill even our most admired systems are calculated to trace and mark these fine gradations, which, while they yet distinguish, closely connect all nature. Too often the hue and cry of “Heretics! Innovators!” thundered out by the schools against all who will not implicitly follow their dogmas, drive the calm and unprejudiced students of nature out of the field. Yet he that discovers one new truth is surely a benefactor to society; but he that defends and inculcates error is a tyrant in the kingdom of Nature.