Chinese quince

Photo: Tusbra at English Wikipedia — Public domain · source

Survives zone 5 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Intensely tart, astringent and hard raw, but sweetly and spicily fragrant — cooked into a soft, mellow-sweet, red-pink preserve, jam or liqueur, and often kept whole in a bowl just for its scent.

Hardiness

Zone 5–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Oct–Nov

Mature size

Small tree 5–10 m with flaking patchwork bark

Light

Full sun to partial

Soil pH

6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Eastern and central China, long cultivated there and in Japan and Korea; no longer clearly known from truly wild stands.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

Moderate

Spacing

500 cm (197 in) apart — about 25 m² (269 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, elliptic to obovate, 5–10 cm long, glossy dark green with finely bristle-toothed margins, turning red and yellow in autumn.

Root system

Deep-rooting with strong laterals; wind-firm and long-lived, and — unlike true quince — usually grown on its own roots rather than as a grafted plant.

Fruit description

Very large hard pome 10–15 cm long, yellow when ripe in late autumn and intensely fragrant enough to scent a room. The flesh is dense, gritty, astringent and inedible raw; it is cooked into preserves, candied, or steeped for the Korean tea mogwa-cha and Chinese medicinal preparations.

Propagation

Seed after cold stratification, or semi-ripe cuttings with bottom heat. Grown on its own roots as a rule, which is part of why old specimens develop the flaking patchwork bark it is prized for.

Pollination

Self-fertile

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.