[2] Its bark is grayish brown with deep vertical cracks forming rectangular plates that tend to lift off.

[16] However, current findings show that natural populations of medlar are diverse with a high genetic potential, which could be used to improve production by using specific genotypes.

[18] From an extensive study of literature and plant specimens, Kazimierz Browicz [pl][18] concluded that the true homeland of M. germanica is only in the southeastern part of the Balkan peninsula, in Asia Minor (Armenian highlands), on the Caucasus, Crimea, northern Iran, and possibly also in Turkmenia.

[19] Air temperatures of 18 to 20 °C (64 to 68 °F) are mentioned as favourable for growth, cold of as low as −20 °C (−4 °F) is tolerated and late frosts hardly cause any damage.

[2] M. germanica can also be infected by Podosphaera clandestina, the pathogen of powdery mildew, which can lead to the wilting of leaves and buds as well as by Entomosporium mespili that causes leaf spots.

[5] The medlar is, like other species of the rosacea family which are used for propagation, susceptible to Erwinia amylovora, the parasitic causative agent of fire blight.

[23] Cultivated forms are propagated by inoculation and by grafting on various substrates such as Crataegus (hawthorn) species, mountain ash, pear or quince to improve the performance in different soils.

[25] Once softening begins, the skin rapidly takes on a wrinkled texture and turns dark brown, and the inside reduces to the consistency and flavour reminiscent of apple sauce.

[25][26] In Gilan, northern Iran, the leaves, bark, fruits and wood of the medlar tree are traditionally used in herbal medicine.

[24] Once bletted, the fruit can be eaten raw, sometimes with sugar and cream—it has been described as being an "acquired taste"[27]—or used to make medlar jelly.

[31] Leaves of medlar fruit were used to produce activated carbon to remove heavy metals like Ni2+ from aqueous solutions.

[32] Silver nanoparticles could be synthesized from M. germanica extract and show antibacterial, antibiofilm activities against multidrug resistance of Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical strains.

For example, in the Prologue to The Reeve's Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer's character laments his old age, comparing himself to the medlar, which he names using the Middle English term for the fruit, "open-arse": In William Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, Apemantus forces an apple upon Timon: "The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends.

The most famous reference to medlars, often bowdlerized until modern editions accepted it, appears in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, when Mercutio laughs at Romeo's unrequited love for his mistress Rosaline (II, 1, 34–38): In the 16th and 17th centuries, medlars were bawdily called "open-arses" because of the shape of the fruits, inspiring boisterous or humorously indecent puns in many Elizabethan and Jacobean plays.

[38] In the southwest of England it historically had a number of vulgar nicknames, such as open-arse and monkey's bottom, due to the appearance of its large calyx (sepals).

[38] In Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote the eponymous hero and Sancho Panza "stretch themselves out in the middle of a field and stuff themselves with acorns or medlars."

In François Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, medlars play a role in the origin of giants, including the eponymous characters.

After Cain killed Abel, the blood of the just saturated the Earth, causing enormous medlars to grow.

Thomas Dekker also draws a comparison in his play The Honest Whore: "I scarce know her, for the beauty of her cheek hath, like the moon, suffered strange eclipses since I beheld it: women are like medlars, no sooner ripe but rotten."

Another reference can be found in Thomas Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One in the character of Widow Medler, impersonated by a courtesan, hence the following pun: "Who?

Remembering a superstition about the dangers of pregnant women not fulfilling their cravings, Glückel asked for someone to fetch her some medlars for the baby.

In "The Peace of Mowsle Barton", the outwardly quiet farmstead features a medlar tree and corrosive hatred.

In "The Boar Pig", the titular animal, Tarquin Superbus, is the point of contact between society ladies cheating to get into the garden party of the season and a not entirely honest young schoolgirl who lures him away by strategically throwing well-bletted medlars: "Come, Tarquin, dear old boy; you know you can't resist medlars when they're rotten and squashy."

Italian novelist Giovanni Verga's naturalist narrative I Malavoglia is titled The House by the Medlar Tree in the English translation.

[citation needed] Philip Pullman describes Sir Charles Latrom's perfume as "rotted like a medlar" in his book The Subtle Knife.