Chap. IX.
Mespilus.
The Medlar tree.
There are three sorts of Medlars: The greater and the lesser English, and the Neapolitan.
The great and the small English Medlar differ not one from the other in any thing, but in the size of the fruit, except that the small kinde hath some prickes or thornes vpon it, which the great one hath not, bearing diuers boughes or armes, from whence breake forth diuers branches, whereon are set long and somewhat narrow leaues, many standing together; in the middle whereof, at the end of the branch, commeth the flower, which is great and white, made of fiue leaues, broad at the ends, with a nicke in the middle of euery one; after which commeth the fruit, being round, and of a pale brownish colour, bearing a crowne of those small leaues at the toppe, which were the huske of the flower before, the middle thereof being somewhat hollow, and is harsh, able to choake any that shall eate it before it be made mellow, wherein there are certaine flat and hard kernels.
The Medlar of Naples groweth likewise to bee a reasonable great tree, spreading forth armes and branches, whereon are set many gashed leaues, somewhat like vnto Hawthorne leaues, but greater, and likewise diuers thornes in many places: the flowers are of an herbie greene colour, and small, which turne into smaller fruit then the former, and rounder also, but with a small head or crowne at the toppe like vnto it, and is of a more sweete and pleasant taste then the other, with three seeds only therein ordinarily.
The Vse of Medlars.
Medlars are vsed in the same manner that Seruices are, that is, to be eaten when they are mellowed, and are for the same purposes to binde the body when there is a cause: yet they as well as the Seruices, are often eaten by them that haue no neede of binding, and but onely for the pleasant sweetnesse of them when they are made mellow, and sometimes come as a dish of ripe fruit at their fit season, to be serued with other sorts to the table.