78 FAMILIAR TREES 



yellowish tints of the flesh of a fruit to brown is a 

 general concomitant of decay, that a bletted Medlar 

 has been thought to be rotting. Soon after bletting, 

 the sugar of the fruit begins to oxidise, and then it is 

 that true decay has set in. 



Parkinson, in his " Theatrum Botanicum " (1640), 

 gives woodcuts of the three forms in which the leaves 

 of the cultivated Medlar are represented as narrower 

 and blunter than they are, and there is no adequate 

 representation of the strong thorns terminating the 

 branches which are so distinctive of the wild form. 



It is noteworthy that Caspar Bauhin in his 

 " Pinax " (1623) speaks of the wild form under the 

 name Mespilus Germanica folio laurino non serrato, 

 sive Mespilus sylvestris" ; and that when, in 1666, 

 Christopher Merrett, in his " Pinax rerum naturalium 

 Britannicarum," first mentioned any precise English 

 localities for the Medlar, he did so under the name 

 Mespilus sylvestris spinosa. His localities were " in 

 the Hedges betwixt Hampsted-heath and Highgate, 

 and in a Holt of Trees three Miles Westward from 

 Crediton in Devonshire." Of these, the first has never 

 been confirmed ; but the late Rev. T. R Archer Briggs 

 recorded the spinous shrubby form as "possibly 

 native " at several spots in east Cornwall and south- 

 west Devon. 



In his " Synopsis stirpium Britannicarum," John 

 Ray (1690) ignored most of Merrett's records as un- 

 trustworthy ; and the only locality he gives for the 

 Medlar is " in all the Hedges about Minchiville ; Mr. 

 Du Bois." Charles Du Bois was probably a trust- 

 worthy observer, and on the strength of this record, 



