76 FAMILIAR TREES 
years later, “Mespilus,” he says, “called in greeke 
mespile, is of two sortes, the one hath three stones 
in the fruite, and that kynde is not wyth us. The 
other kynde hath in the fruite, fyve stones, and 
thys kynde is commune in Englande, and it is called 
in englishe a Medler tree.” This obviously does not 
amount to any reference to the tree in a wild state. 
When, in his “ Herball,” in 1597, Gerard mentions 
its occurrence, “often-times in hedges among briars 
and brambles,” it is clear from his use of the name 
“Mespylus sativus” that he is speaking of the 
cultivated tree, or, as Parkinson calls it, “the great 
manured Medler,” in an escaped. condition, for in the 
earlier writers sativus is always used in this strict 
sense, as opposed to sylvestris for sylvan, or wild forms. 
It is interesting to remember that it was just when 
Gerard was writing his “ Herball” that Shakespeare was 
writing Romeo and Juliet, the first of his plays to 
contain any reference to the Medlar, whilst Richard 
ITI., which contains so wonderful an epitome of the 
whole art of gardening, was printed in the very same 
year as Gerard’s magnum opus. As, owing to its 
hard core, the seed of the Medlar takes about two 
years to sprout, the tree is at the present day 
commonly grafted upon a Pear stock; and we may 
almost believe that the myriad-minded Shakespeare 
was aware of such a practice when in As You Like It 
he makes Rosalind say to Touchstone, “I'll graff it 
with you, and then I shall graff it with a Medlar: then 
it will be the earliest fruit i’ the country; for you'll be 
rotten ere you be half pS, and that’s the right virtue 
of the Medlar.” 
