I HAP. XLII. 



933 



ft. iMttre'in Spreiy;-, *-><"'<> Mill., if. p. fiUl. ; Crata;^"* indica I. u> . 

 <(/*., p. :>!<.; is :i native of Cochin-China, where it grow* to the 

 height of .SOft, and produces edible fruit 



R. spirAlis Don's Mill., 2. p. 60L>. ; Afespilus spiralis Blutne Bijdr., 

 p. 110'J. ; is a tree, a native of China, with cuneate-oblong leaves. 



Eriobotrya (from erion, wool, and botrus, a bunch 

 ot' grapes ; in reference to the fruit and flowers, which 

 are in bunches, and woolly) Litull.; Dec. Prod., ii. 

 p. 631.; Don'* A/7/7., ii. p. 602. This is a genus of 

 Japan trees, evergreen in their foliage, which is large ; 

 and, independently of their flowers, strikingly pic- 

 turesque and ornamental. The species are all readily 

 propagated by grafting on the common hawthorn, or 

 on the pear or quince. 



E. jajwnica Lindl. ; .Mespilus japonica Thunb. 

 Jap., 206., N. Du Ham., iv. p. 146. t. 39.; Lou-Koer, 

 Japan, (corrupted to Loquat, the common English 

 name of the plant) ; 6Vatae v gus Bibas (Bibasis, the Por- 

 tuguese name) Lour. Cock., p. 319., Bot. Keg., t. 6-54 

 365., and our Jigs. 655., and 656.) has long, broad, wrinkled, elliptic, serrated 

 leaves, tomentose beneath ; and terminal panicles of white flowers, which are 



655 succeeded by pear-shaped, yellow, 

 downy fruit, about the size of 

 large gooseberries. It is a native 

 of China and Japan, where it is 

 cultivated as a fruit tree, and also 

 as being ornamental; and where 

 it grows to the height of 20 ft. 

 or 30 ft. It was introduced into 

 Europe in 1784, according to the 

 Nouv. DuHamel; and it is found, 

 more especially when grafted on 

 the common thorn, to stand the 

 winters both of Paris and London 

 against a wall, with very little pro- 

 tection. It has also produced fruit 

 at different places in England, under glass, which, when well ripened in a stove, 

 is not much inferior in taste and flavour to an ordinary plum. At Blithe- 

 field, in Staffordshire, the loquat was fruited in pots, 

 which were removed from the stove to the open air, 

 and kept there from July to the middle of October, in 

 order to give them a period of repose equivalent to a 

 winter in their native country. After this, the plants 

 were replaced in the stove, where they began to show 

 flower about the end of December, and ripened their 

 fruit in March or April. (See Hort. Trans., vol. 3. t. 11., 

 and E. of G. y edit. 1835, p. 981.) When the loquat 

 is to be grown for its fruit, it is suggested, in the Nouv. 

 Du Ilftnie/, that the Cydonia vulgaris would form a better stock for it 

 than the 6Vatae v gus Oxyacantha ; because the nature of the wood of the 

 former, and its rate of expansion, come nearer to those of the loquat than 

 those of the latter do. If it were thought worth while to grow the plant for 

 its fruit, the first step would be to procure a very superior variety either from 

 China, or by raising and fruiting some hundreds of seedlings in the open air, 

 in Italy or Spain, and selecting those plants which produced the largest and 

 best-flavoured fruit. These could be perpetuated by grafting on the quince, 

 or on seedlings of the species ; and the plants might be trained against a wall 

 or on a trellis under glass, or against a fined wall in the warmer parts of the 

 south of England, and treated as the orange tree is there. . To cultivate, for 

 its fruit, any variety that may accidentally have fallen into the hands of the 



3Q 4 



656 



