Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote in
:

In message , "David Horne,
_the_ chancellor (*)" writes
Ophelia wrote:

Sacha wrote:
On 3/12/07 17:00, in article
, "Mike...."
wrote:

Following up to (Nick Maclaren) wrote:

"Some sort of japonica", in normal usage, can mean only one of
the Chaenomeles. Japonica as the name of a group of plants
means that and nothing else.

are there not various "japanese" quinces? I understood the
meaning to be that. I had an ormamental one in the garden for a
time.

Japanese quinces are usually understood to be Chaenomeles and then
there are named varieties of that. AFAIK, you can make jelly
from them.
Cydonia is the true quince with the large, golden, roughly
pear-shaped fruit - these are real beauties when mature trees but
they're not the 'mysterious fruit' I'm trying to ID.

All this sounds so exotic to me. I tend to grow apples, plums,
blackberries, rhubarb and blackcurrants. We do eat them and I cook
with them. I suppose it is because it is what I grew up with I
do try unknown fruits but somehow I can't get to grips with them.

I had fun trying to ID nisperos in English- as I only ever knew them
by the spanish name. It's loquat, but the Italian nespole (that's what
they were called in a market when we bought them in Rome) translates
as medlar fruit, which I don't think is the same thing- though related
IIRC?

You can think of a medlar (Mespilus) as a giant haw (Crataegus);
loquats (Eriobotrya) are also pome fruits, but so are apples, pears,
serviceberries, and quite a few other plants.

One fruit I particularly like but don't see much in the UK shops is
grenadilla (is there an English name?). Divine! Lidl (of all places!)
was selling them a while back...

Yes, there is an English name; it is granadilla.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granadilla

Hello blast-from-the-past.


--
Adrian

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