Medlar Tree’s Uses

The medlar is a strange rather forgotten fruit for many people. Some never even heard of it or if they did they don’t really know what it looks like. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, you must know that the medlar is a tree that grows edible fruits and it belongs to the Rosaceae family. As all other plants composing this family, it grows rose-like flowers, pretty and perfumed. Medlar’s flowers are white and a garden full of blooming medlar tree is a quite astonishing fairytale-like view.

The late fruits of the medlar look very unusual. They are round like most rosaceae fruits, but they are small and covered with a hard brown peal. Fruits are not fully covered, but exposed in the back, where we can see the seeds. These fruits are very bizarre not only in looks, but also in properties. One of the reasons they are not much commercialized and almost no one has them in their diet is the fact they become edible when they are about to get rotten. You can not eat them once picked up because the seeds contain some toxic substances that can be eliminated only by keeping the fruits for a few weeks.

The fruits properties are very effective in combating kidney and liver illnesses. A tea can be made form medlar fruits, and if consumed twice a day it improve the kidney’s blood cleaning abilities, helping people that need dialysis getting less frequent dialysis appointments. It does not fix the kidneys definitely but it help them prologue their life.

Medlars make a great jam. Sweet and smooth, the cooked fruits are very effective as a delicious and rare desert that goes well with the most sophisticated vine and cocktails. Because the fruit is half rotten when consumed, it has itself a vine-like flavour and is considered to be a desert for the grown-ups and not sweets for kids.

Not only medlar fruits are used by humans. The tree wood and branches grow very slowly over a long period of time, and this makes them have a smooth shinny and clean texture. It is also very resistant and people from previous centuries used to utilize it in the spear making industry. Nowadays, medlar wood has a decorative function and because it is one of the most resistant woods there are, sculptures made from medlar are highly appreciated.