PLATE DXCI. 



MESPILUS TANACETIFOLIA 



Tansy-leaved Medlar. 



CLASS XII. ORDER V. 



ICOSJNDRIA PENTAGYNM. Twenty Chives. Five Pointals 



ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. 



Calyx 5-fidus. Petala 5. Bacca infera, 5- 

 sperma. 



Calyx 5-cleft. Petals 5. Berry below, 5- 

 seeded. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTER. 



Mespilus floribus bracteatis ; foliis pinnatifi- 

 dis ; laciniis argute serratis, pubescentibus. 



Mesftlus with bracts to the flowers; the leaves 

 wing-cleft, with the divisions sawed and 

 downy. 



\ 



REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 



1. The empalemenfc and pointals. 



2. A branch with ripe fruit. 



Neither is this species enumerated in the works of Linnaeus. The great French botanist Tournefort, who 

 discovered it on the mountains of Anatolia in 1701, thus describes it : "These mountains produce a 

 fine sort of Azarolier or Medlar- tree \ there are some as big as oaks. Their trunk is covered with a 

 cleft grayish bark ; the branches are bushy, and spreading out on the sides ; the leaves are in bunches 

 two inches and a half long, fifteen lines broad, shining, a little hairy on both sides, commonly divided 

 into three parts even to the rib, and these parts indented very neatly on the edges, pretty much like the 

 leaves oi' tansy ; the part at the end of the leaf is again divided into three parts. The fruit grow two 

 or three together at the end of the young shoots, and resemble small apples of an inch diameter with five 

 roundings like the ribs of a melon, a little hairy, pale green inclining to a yellow, with a navel raised of 

 five leaves. We sometimes find one or two of these leaves growing out of the flesh of the fruit, or 



Medlar, but I believe it would be excel 



its stalk. The 



lent if it were cultivated. The Armenians not only eat as much of this as they can, but like- 

 wise fill their bags. The short period the tree has been introduced (not above 20 y 



~ . . v — ^.vw.vu.'s, aswe are in- 



formed) will not allow any in England, as yet, to have reached the size above mentioned 5 and we 

 much doubt whether it may be thought worthy of cultivation here for the fruit : but the beauty of the 

 tree and agreeable fragrance of the blossoms sufficiently recommend it to a place in the pleasure-garden. 

 This and the last described species with the artificial characters of the genu* Mespilus have all the na- 

 tural habits of Crataegus, and show how ill even our most admired systems are calculated to trace and 

 mark these fine gradations, which, while they yet distinguish, closely connect all nature. Too often the 

 hue and cry of " Heretics ! Innovators !" thundered out by the schools against all who will not implicitly 

 follow th r dogmas, drive the calm and unprejudiced students of nature out of the field. Yet he that 

 discovers one new truth is surely a benefactor to society; but he that defends and inculcates error is a 

 tyrant m the kingdom of Nature. 



