506 ORD, XXVIII. Pomacee. PYRUS CYDONIAs 
THIS tree seldom rises very high, being usually crooked and 
distorted: it sends off several branches, and is covered with a 
brown bark: the leaves are simple, roundish or oval, entire, on 
the upper side of a dusky green colour, on the under whitish, and 
stand upon short footstalks: the flowers are large, solitary, of a 
pale red or white colour, and placed close to the axilla of the 
leaves: the calyx is composed of one leaf, and divided into five 
spreading oval notched segments: the corolla consists of five . 
petals ; these are large, convex, roundish, and notched at their 
extremities: the filaments are about twenty, tapering, shorter than 
the corolla, inserted into the calyx, and furnished with simple 
anther: the germen is orbicular, the styles. are five, slender, 
nearly of the length of the filaments, and supplied with simple 
stigmata: the fruit is of the-apple kind, and divided at the centre 
into five membranous. cells, containing the seeds, which are 
oblong, angular, pointed at one end, obtuse at the other, on one 
side compressed, on the other flat, and covered with a brownish 
pellicle. ‘tis a native of ‘Austria,* and flowers in May and June. 
It appears from Pliny,* that the malus Cydonia, or Mraz xune of 
the Greeks, was originally brought from Cydon in Crete, hence 
the name Cydonia. At present, the Quince tree is known to grow 
wild on the banks of the Danube, though in a much less luxuriant 
state than we observe it in British gardens, where it was cultivated 
in the time of Gerard. The form of the fruit approaches to that 
of the pear or apple, according to the different varieties of this 
species of tree from which it is produced, and which we have 
already noticed under the synonyms: it has a pleasant odour, and 
a very austere taste:|| its expressed juice, repeatedly taken in 
small quantities, is said to be cooling, restringent, and stomachic, 
* Vide Aiton’s Hort. Kew. = Lib. xv. cap. 11, | 
-—  Heister Diss. de Cydoniis, p. 59. 
But upon being boiled and preserved in syrup, this fruit is well known to give 
a pleasant flavour to ei 
