In article ,
says...
On 4/12/07 17:05, in article ,
"David Horne, _the_ chancellor *" wrote:

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?

I think this is a bit like the Cydonia quince and the Chaenomeles quince,
isn't it?

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...

Passion flower - Passiflora edulis and yes, delicious but unlikely to do
much fruiting in the UK.

I think one of the reasons people get a poor crop is that when grown
commercially they have cross polinators of different passion flowers
every so many plants (sorry don't know which one) but folk dont have the
space for that in their greenhouses :~)
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea