Loquat

Rhaphiolepis bibas

Family · Rosaceae · Irritating

Edible

The tree with big wrinkled leaves that bears orange loquats in spring, planted in yards nationwide and now spreading on its own along verges and banks. It flowers in midwinter and smells of bitter almond.

Where it grows

Town and roadside · Roadsides and waste ground · Fields and pasture · Streams and ditches

Also known as

Japanese medlar, loquat tree

In flower

In fruit

How to tell it

Large leaves, twenty to thirty centimetres, leathery, dark green and glossy above, with strongly marked veins and a rusty-hairy underside. White flowers in dense felted clusters in winter, strongly and sweetly scented. Oval orange fruits with two to four large brown seeds.

What it is confused with

Common medlar

Mespilus germanica

Harmless confusion

They share the name medlar and nothing else. The European one is a small deciduous tree, flowering in May with large solitary white flowers, and bears a brown flattened fruit open at the top in a crown, edible only once bletted. The Japanese one has huge evergreen leaves, flowers in winter and fruits orange in spring.

Almond tree

Prunus dulcis

Confusion that poisons

The trees are not confused, the seeds are: loquat seeds look like large brown almonds and some people try to use them as such. They are not used. They hold the same kind of cyanogenic compound as bitter almond, and chewing them means certain poisoning.

What it is for

The ripe flesh is eaten and it is a market fruit across the Peninsula. The seeds are not: they contain cyanogenic glycosides and are toxic if chewed, like peach or apricot kernels. They are thrown away whole, never ground or turned into homemade liqueur without knowing what you are doing.

Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.

Sources

Flora-On