272 



THE EOSE FAMILY. 



XVII. MEDLAR. MESPILUS. 



A single species, distinguished as a genus from Hawthorn on account 

 of its large flowers with more foliaceous divisions to the calyx, and of 

 its fruit, of which the bony cells are more exposed at the top of the 

 fruit, and more readily separable from each other. 



1. Common Medlar. Mespilus germanica, Linn. (Fig. 335.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 1523.) 



A shrub or small tree, more or less 

 thorny when wild, but losing its thorns 

 in cultivation. Leaves undivided, nearly 

 sessile, lanceolate or oblong, with very 

 small teeth, usually downy, especially 

 on the under side. Flowers large, white 

 or slightly pink, solitary and sessile on 

 short leafy branches. Styles glabrous 

 and distinct, usually 5. Fruit nearly 

 globular or pear-shaped, crowned by a 

 broad hairy disk, from whence the 5 

 bony cells very slightly protrude. 



In hedges and thickets, common in 

 southern Europe to the Caucasus, ex- 

 tending more or less into central Eu- 

 rope, but in many cases only as escaped 

 from cultivation. In Britain, apparently 

 wild in several localities in southern 

 England, but probably not truly indi- 

 genous. Fl. spring. 



Fig. 335. 



The CalycantJms, occasionally planted in shrubberies, and CJiimon- 

 antJms, often trained against walls, belong to the small North American 

 and Asiatic CalycantJms family, allied on the one hand to the Rose 

 family, on the other to the Magnolia family. The common Myrtle, a 

 south European shrub, is one of the very large tropical Myrtle family, 

 with the indefinite perigynous stamens of the Rosacece, but with oppo- 

 site leaves, and a completely syncarpous inferior ovary. 



