''Chaenomeles japonica'', called the Japanese quince, Maule's quince, or "Japonica", is a species of
flowering quince that is native to
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
It is a thorny
deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...
shrub that is commonly cultivated. It is shorter than another commonly cultivated species ''
C. speciosa'', growing to only about 1 m in height. It is best known for its colorful spring flowers, which are red, white, pink or multicoloured.
Description
It is a bulky shrub with
thorns and widely spreading branches, which reaches heights of growth of 0.6 to 2.0 meters. The leaves are lanceolate to
obovate
The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade is divided into two or more leaflets) ...
, roughly toothed and glabrous even when young. They are 4 to 5 inches long and 2 to 3 inches wide, including the
petiole
Petiole may refer to:
*Petiole (botany), the stalk of a leaf, attaching the blade to the stem
*Petiole (insect anatomy)
In entomology, petiole is the technical term for the narrow waist of some hymenopteran insects, especially ants, bees, and ...
. The unusually large
stipules
In botany, a stipule is an outgrowth typically borne on both sides (sometimes on just one side) of the base of a leafstalk (the petiole). They are primarily found among dicots and rare among monocots. Stipules are considered part of the anatomy ...
are 1 centimeter long and 1.5 to 2 centimeters wide, kidney-shaped and serrated on the edge; they are only found on long shoots.
[Bailey, L.H.; Bailey, E.Z.; the staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium. 1976. ''Hortus third: A concise dictionary of plants cultivated in the United States and Canada''. Macmillan, New York.]
It blooms in winter, before leaf budding; it blooms again in summer but with less abundance. Usually there are 2 to 3 flowers arranged together; they are coloured orange to brick red. When open, the flowers are 3 to 4 centimeters wide. The fruit is called in Japanese. It produces apple-shaped fruit, 4 to 7 centimeters in diameter, that are a golden-yellow color containing red-brown seeds.
Erich Oberdorfer
Erich Oberdorfer (26 March 1905 in Freiburg – 23 September 2002) was a German biologist specializing in phytosociology and phytogeography. His official botanical author abbreviation is "Oberd." Early life and education
Oberdorfer was born in F ...
: Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . 8th edition. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 . Page 501.
Uses
The fruit is edible, but hard and
astringent
An astringent (sometimes called adstringent) is a chemical that shrinks or constricts body tissues. The word derives from the Latin '' adstringere'', which means "to bind fast". Astringency, the dry, puckering or numbing mouthfeel caused by t ...
, unless
bletted or cooked. The fruits are not edible raw, but as with all fruits of the rose family, the pulp is non-toxic and the kernels contain small amounts of poison. The fruit is occasionally used in jam, jelly and pie making as a substitute for its cousin, the true quince, ''
Cydonia oblonga
The quince (; ''Cydonia oblonga'') is the sole member of the genus ''Cydonia'' in the Malinae subtribe (which contains apples, pears, and other fruits) of the Rosaceae family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard, aromatic bright golden-yell ...
''. ''C. japonica'' is also popularly grown in
bonsai
Bonsai (; , ) is the Japanese art of Horticulture, growing and shaping miniature trees in containers, with a long documented history of influences and native Japanese development over a thousand years, and with unique aesthetics, cultural hist ...
.
It accepts all types of soil, but grows very slowly in
calcareous
Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime (mineral), lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of Science, scientific disciplines.
In zoology
''Calcare ...
soil.
Gallery
Image:Chaenomeles Japonica.jpg, Flowers
Image:Japanese quince fruit 2015 G1.jpg, Fruit
File:Chaenomeles japonica Prague 2017 1.jpg, Whole plant
References
External links
*
Information from Plants for a Future'
{{Taxonbar, from=Q158037
japonica