78 FAMILIAR TREES 
yellowish tints of the flesh of a fruit to brown isa 
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, 
