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Quince
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The Quince (), or Cydonia oblonga, is the sole member of the genus Cydonia and native to warm-temperate southwest Asia in the Caucasus region. It is a small deciduous tree, growing 5–8 m tall and 4–6 m wide, related to apples and pears, and like them has a pome fruit, which is bright golden yellow when mature, pear-shaped, 7–12 cm long and 6–9 cm broad.
The immature fruit is green, with dense grey-white which mostly (but not all) rubs off before maturity in late autumn when the fruit changes colour to yellow with hard flesh that is strongly perfumed. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 6-11 cm long, with an entire margin and densely pubescent with fine white hairs. The flowers, produced in spring after the leaves, are white or pink, 5 cm across, with five petals.
Quince is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Brown-tail, Bucculatrix bechsteinella, Bucculatrix pomifoliella, Coleophora cerasivorella, Coleophora malivorella, Green Pug and Winter Moth.
Four other species previously included in the genus Cydonia are now treated in separate genera. These are the Chinese Quince Pseudocydonia sinensis, a native of China, and the three flowering quinces of eastern Asia in the genus Chaenomeles. Another unrelated fruit, the Bael, is sometimes called the "Bengal Quince".
Cultural associations- The film El Sol del Membrillo (Quince Tree of the Sun; Dream of Light) directed by Víctor Erice in 1992 is a documentary about a painter, Antonio López García, who spends September through December painting a quince tree in his garden.
- In an episode of The Simpsons, "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 1", Mr. Burns and Waylon Smithers end up eating an entire box of chocolates in one sitting, leaving behind and discarding only one piece: the sour quince log.
- In Edward Lear's famous poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" the protagonists "dined on mince and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon".
- In Neal Asher's novel Gridlinked, a quince is a person who travels spontaneously using a device known as a runcible. This reference comes from the Edward Lear poem The Owl and the Pussycat.
- In the movie White Men Can't Jump, Rosie Perez's character Gloria Clemente was on Jeopardy!, and "quince" was the response to "Adam and Eve dined on this forbidden fruit".
- In the play Cataplana, an aging antagonist named Ari attacks his partner, Linda, over her claim that he had a pear tree on his property—when in fact it was a quince.
- Paul Muldoon's poem, "Lunch with Pancho Villa" contains the line, "The quince tree I forgot to mention,"
- In the book, Ten Thousand Sorrows, by Elizabeth Kim, on page 5 line 7 Quince tea is drunk alongside a meal.
- In the musical Pippin, Catherine makes Pippin a quince pudding flambé. It is this extension of domesticity that is the final impetus for Pippin to leave her.
- In Plutarch's Lives, Solon is said to have decreed that "bride and bridegroom shall be shut into a chamber, and eat a quince together."
See also
External links
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