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Plant of the week: Plant has range of uses from mascara to fighting IBS
November 1, 2019
Name: Quince (Cydonia oblonga)
Otherwise known as: Golden Apple
Habitat: A deciduous tree member of the Rosaceae family, which can grow to 8m. It has grey-green leaves with a wooly underside, the strangely twisted stems are topped by white, pink or yellow flowers. Native to Persia, although some believe it originates in Crete’s Apple of Cydonia, an area of the island. It now grows throughout Europe and the Mediterranean region in rich soils and hedges.
What does it do: Quince produces a very hard, heavy fruit which resembles a pear, and is inedible unless cooked when it will turn pink.
Both Hippocrates and Dioscorides valued the plant as an astringent and a preventive for spreading sores. This is the ‘love apple’ that Gaea gave the Goddess Hera on the day she married Zeus. It may surprise the Anglo-Saxons to know that the word marmalade derives from the Portugese term for quince, marmelo.