The Hastings Botany Group discovered a very unusual tree while conducting a botanical survey at Guestling Wood in Sussex. Members of the group were most surprised to come across a Medlar tree (Mespilus germanica) in the woodland.
Dave Bonsall, woodland officer for the wood, said: The tree was discovered near a Scout hut. It is quite an unassuming little tree, only about 10ft high, so could easily have been missed. It is not believed to be native to the UK and being a fruit tree, doesn’t normally grow in the wild - so it is quite an oddity to find it here
The Medlar’s normal range is south-east Europe to western Asia, although it has been cultivated for centuries beyond its normal range. The trees are dark in appearance, with contorted trunks, and solitary wild flowers on the branches.
So how did it get there?
Views vary: Some people believe that woodsmen used to plant Medlar trees, while others that peasants planted orchard trees in the wild. Alternatively, it may simply be the result of being bird-sown. There is even the theory by eminent pre-war botanist A H Wolley-Dod that the Medlar may be native to the south-east of England.
However, this latter theory is discounted by Richard Mabey’s who says in his Flora Britannica: ‘Most of the vaguely wild specimens are obviously relics of plantings in orchards or parks. It is strictly, a native of south-east Europe and south-west Asia, anciently introduced and barely ripening its fruit unaided in this country’
The fruits of the Medlar tree are rather interesting. Dull brown in appearance, they do not look very appetising and are most disagreeable to eat until they have started to decay (called being ‘bletted’) after which they have sharp acid taste. Some people also suggest picking them in late October and then putting them under your bed for a few weeks to ripen further. There are many different Medlar fruit recipes and suggestions of how to eat them. For instances, they can be made into wine, jam, jelly or eaten with sugar and cream.
However, Mabey does go on to say: ‘… the medlar’s fruits have gone out of fashion, and the tree has become one of those intriguing species whose provenance – and distribution, for that matter – are shadowy issues, prone to throwing up myths.’
The mysterious nature of the Medlar tree seems to have inspired many famous writers. ‘The house by the Medlar tree’ by Giovanni Verga is a popular book about a Sicilian fishing family, and there is also a collection of poems by Australian poet Syd Harrex called 'Under a Medlar Tree'. William Shakespeare even mentions the Medlar tree in several of his plays.
One thing is for certain, we may never know how or why the Medlar tree came to be in Guestling Wood.
