1. Chaenomeles speciosa (Sweet) Nakai (common flowering quince, Japanese
quince)
C. lagenaria (Loisel.) Koidz.
Map 2410
Plants shrubs,
1.0–2.5 m tall, sometimes suckering to form colonies. Stems usually armed with
stout straight thorns, these indeterminate, consisting of short branches that
eventually become elongated and leafy. Bark reddish brown to grayish brown,
smooth or somewhat roughened. Leaves alternate or appearing fascicled at the
tips of short-shoots arising laterally from older branches, folded lengthwise
during development, short-petiolate to nearly sessile, the petioles glabrous.
Stipules present only on vigorously elongating young branches, 5–10 mm long,
herbaceous, kidney-shaped to heart-shaped, the margins finely toothed, shed as
the leaves develop. Leaf blades 1.5–10.0 cm long, simple, unlobed, elliptic to
elliptic-obovate, tapered at the base, rounded or more commonly narrowed or
tapered to a sharply pointed tip, the margins finely and sharply toothed, the
upper surface glabrous, the undersurface glabrous or sparsely hairy along the
main veins when young. Inflorescences small clusters or single flowers along
second-year or older branches, produced before or as the leaves unfold (often a
few flowers also produced later in the year), the stalks very short, glabrous,
with a small linear bract, this usually shed before the flower opens. Flowers
epigynous, the hypanthium fused to the ovaries, glabrous. Sepals 5, 3–4 mm
long, cupped upward or inward, oblong with broadly rounded tips, the margins
usually reddish purple and hairy, the inner surface moderately to densely
woolly, usually persistent and beaklike at fruiting. Petals 5, 13–22 mm long,
broadly obovate, orangish red to red, less commonly pink or white. Stamens
numerous, the anthers yellow. Pistil 1 per flower. Ovary inferior, the tip
usually moderately hairy, with 5 locules, each with numerous ovules. Styles 5,
fused toward the base, the stigmas 2-lobed, the lobes often somewhat elongate
along opposite sides toward the tip of the style. Fruits rarely produced in
Missouri, pomes, 30–70 mm long, globose or somewhat ovoid, glabrous, yellow to
greenish or brownish yellow, with small lighter-colored spots at maturity, with
numerous easily exposed seeds embedded in the “core” of leathery carpel wall
remains and the fleshy portion, this with small clusters of gritty stone cells.
2n=34. March–May.
Introduced,
uncommon and widely scattered (native of Asia, widely cultivated and escaped
sporadically in the eastern U.S. west to Wisconsin and Louisiana). Roadsides
and disturbed areas, especially around old homesites.
This species is
commonly cultivated as an ornamental shrub and is sometimes trimmed into
hedges. It was first reported for Missouri by T. E. Smith (2001) without
citation of specimens. Most of the few collections from Missouri represent
plants merely persisting from old plantings. However, at one site along a dirt
roadway on a narrow ridgetop in Oregon County, shrubs had become naturalized to
form large thickets.