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Published In: Japanese Journal of Botany 4(3): 331. 1929. (Jap. J. Bot.) Name publication detail
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 9/22/2017)
Acceptance : Accepted
Project Data     (Last Modified On 7/9/2009)
Status: Introduced

 

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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.

 
 


 

 
 
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