page_title: Loquat
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Loquat / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Ripe single seeded loquats
context_page_description: The loquat — Eriobotrya japonica — is a large evergreen shrub or tree, grown commercially for its orange fruit, its leaves for tea, and 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. Since it reached its shores, the loquat has been grown in Japan for over 1,000 years, and has been introduced to regions with subtropical to mild temperate climates throughout the world.
  Eriobotrya japonica was formerly thought to be closely related to the genus Mespilus, and is still sometimes known as the Japanese medlar. It is also known as Japanese plum and Chinese plum, as well as pipa in China, and nespolo in southern Italy.
context_section_description: Eriobotrya japonica is a large evergreen shrub or small tree, with a rounded crown, short trunk and woolly new twigs. The tree can grow to 5–10 metres (16–33 ft) tall, but is often smaller, about 3–4 metres (10–13 ft). The fruit begins to ripen during spring to summer depending on the temperature in the area. The leaves are alternate, simple, 10–25 centimetres (4–10 in) long, dark green, tough and leathery in texture, with a serrated margin, and densely velvety-hairy below with thick yellow-brown pubescence; the young leaves are also densely pubescent above, but this soon rubs off.
caption: Ripe single seeded loquats
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