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| FROM KŒHLER'S MEDICINAL-PFLANZEN. | QUINCE. | CHICAGO: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER. |
Description of Plate.—A, flowering twig; B, fruit; 1, stipules; 2, flower in section; 3, stamen; 4, pollen; 5, style; 6, stigma; 7 and 8, fruit in sections; 9 and 10, seeds of one cell of the ovary; 11, seeds; 12, seed in sections.
THE QUINCE.
(Cydonia vulgaris, Pers., or Pyrus Cydonia, L..)
BY DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER,
Northwestern University School of Pharmacy.
Of ripened quinces such the mellow hue.
—Congreve Translation, of Ovid's Art of Love.
THE quince is the pear-like fruit of a bush or small tree resembling the pear tree. The branches are spreading and of a grayish green or brownish green color. The leaves are simple, entire, ovate, with short petioles and distinct stipules. The lower surface of leaves and stipules as well as the young twigs and the sepals are densely covered with hair-cells producing a woolly appearance. The flowers develop in May and June and are usually solitary upon terminal branches. Calyx green with five foliaceous, serrate, reflexed lobes. Corolla of five separate ovate, rather large, pink petals. Stamens yellow, numerous (20); five styles and a five-celled ovary. The matured fruit is a pome. That is, the greater bulk consists of the thickened calyx enclosing the ovary. The form, size and color of the ripe fruit are shown in the illustration. Each cell of the ovary bears from six to fifteen seeds which resemble apple seeds very closely as to form and color.