Mespilus, 'Royal' medlar

  Mespilus germanicaVariety description: 'Royal' is an English cultivar first imported into the US about 30 years ago. The USDA describes this variety as having :"medium sized fruit, good flavor, heavy cropper." We can attest to the accuracy of this description and would add that its quite precocious, with a small 4 year old tree bearing a large crop.    Medlars are close relatives of hawthorns and are native to southeastern coastal region of Mediterranean and southwestern Asia. Medlars have at least a thousand year long cultivation history over a wide region stretching from Iran to England. Charlemagne dictated that medlars be planted in all of his royal estates, while Shakespeare referenced the fruit is several of his plays. The odd shaped, green-brown fruit looks like a large crab apple with its bottom end open rather than spherical. The fruit should be picked after the first hard frost. At this point it will still be hard and unpleasant. In order to ripen or "blett" the fruit, it i