This loquat vs kumquat is about a species of flowering plants called Japanese medlar. It is also cultivated as an ornamental plant. The loquat is in the family Rosaceae, and is native to the cooler hill regions of south-central China.

Eriobotrya japonica was formerly thought to be closely related to the genus Mespilus, and is still sometimes mistakenly known as the Japanese medlar. Eriobotrya japonica is a large evergreen shrub or small tree, with a rounded crown, short trunk and woolly new twigs. The fruit begins to ripen during spring to summer depending on the temperature in the area. Loquats are unusual among fruit trees in that the flowers appear in the autumn or early winter, and the fruits are ripe at any time from early spring to early summer.

The flowers have a sweet, heady aroma that can be smelled from a distance. The succulent, tangy flesh is white, yellow or orange and sweet to subacid or acid, depending on the cultivar. Each fruit contains from one to ten ovules, with three to five being most common. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. The plant is originally from China, where related species can be found growing in the wild.

It has been cultivated there for over a thousand years. The loquat was often mentioned in medieval Chinese literature, such as the poems of Li Bai. The first European record of the species might have been in the 16th century by Michał Boym, a Polish jesuit, orientalist, politician and missionary to China. He described loquat in his Flora sinensis, the first European natural history book about China.

John Lindley, who published these changes in 1821. The most common variety in Portugal is the late ripening Tanaka, where it is popular in gardens and backyards, but not commercially produced. Over 800 loquat cultivars exist in Asia. Self-fertile variants include the ‘Gold Nugget’ and ‘Mogi’ cultivars.