Mespilus canescens, commonly known as Stern's medlar, is a large shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 or small tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

, recently discovered in Prairie County, Arkansas, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, in 1990. It is a critically endangered endemic

Endemic (ecology)

Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...

 species, with only 25 plants known, all in one small (9 ha

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

) wood, now protected as the Konecny Grove Natural Area.

It has been shown by genetic analysis to be closely related to the Common Medlar

Common Medlar

Mespilus germanica, known as the common medlar is a large shrub or small tree, and the name of the fruit of this tree. Despite its Latin name, which means German or Germanic medlar, it is indigenous to southwest Asia and also southeastern Europe, mostly the Black Sea coasts of modern Turkey...

 M. germanica, which was hitherto the only known species in the genus. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are very similar to that species, dark green and elliptic, 7–12 cm long and 3–4 cm wide. The five-petalled white flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s are produced in late spring. The fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 is a pome

Pome

In botany, a pome is a type of fruit produced by flowering plants in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae.A pome is an accessory fruit composed of one or more carpels surrounded by accessory tissue...

, 2–3 cm diameter, with wide-spreading persistent sepals giving a 'hollow' appearance to the fruit; it differs from Common Medlar fruit in being bright glossy red when ripe (not matte brown).

External links and references

• Center for Plant Conservation: Mespilus canescens
• Phipps, J.B. 1990. Mespilus canescens, a new rosaceous endemic from Arkansas. Systematic Botany 15: 26-32.
• Phipps, J.B., Weeden, N.F., & Dickson, E.E. 1991. Isozyme evidence for the naturalness of Mespilus L. (Rosaceae, subfam. Maldoideae). Systematic Botany 16: 546-552.