LOQUAT.. 



Loquat, or Japanese Medlar (Photonia (Eriobotria) japonica), is an evergreen 

 tree, with large, handsome, dark green leaves, downy beneath, and produces white 

 fragrant flowers in pendulous racemes in November and December. The fruits are 

 round and about the size of small apricots, pale orange in colour and slightly downy. 

 When properly ripened they are very juicy and possess a sweet rich sub-acid flavour, 

 quite distinct from any other fruit. Though the fruit of the loquat is seldom grown to 

 perfection in this country there is no doubt about its excellence when well grown in a 

 suitable climate. In both China and Japan the loquat is a common tree, and its fruit 

 is highly esteemed by the natives of both countries. It is also cultivated in the south 

 of France, and considerable quantities of fruit are annually secured. The fruit will, 

 bear travelling well, and finds ready purchasers in fruiterers' shops. This imported 

 fruit, however, though attractive in appearance, is seldom of good quality, much being 

 insipid due probably to the circumstance of its having been gathered in an unripe 

 state. 



We have not seen any imported fruits of the loquat equal in size, colour, and 

 quality to specimens that were grown by Mr. W. Bowell, gardener to Lady Parker, 

 Stawell House, Eichmond, Surrey, and exhibited at a meeting of the Koyal Horticul- 

 tural Society in 1881. They were borne in bunches, one of which, much reduced, is 

 represented on the next page. The detached fruit, however, is full sized, or rather fair 

 sized, for some were a little larger and others smaller. The first record we have of a 

 tree producing fruits in England occurs in the third volume of the Horticultural 

 Society's Transactions, published in 1822. A letter is there printed from Lord Bagot 

 of Blythfield, Staffordshire, recounting the fruiting of a tree in one of his lordship's 

 houses. Fruits were produced during several years, generally of very fine quality and 

 extremely numerous, as many as twenty-one being borne on a bunch. The method 

 adopted was to place the trees out of doors during the summer and remove them, to a 

 warm house in September, where they soon afterwards flowered, the fruit ripening early 



