Loquat tree, alias: lute orange, golden pill, lute branch, Latin name: Eriobotrya japonica (Thunb.) Lindl. Rosaceae, loquat genus, bird fruit tree evergreen small tree, branchlets stout, yellow-brown, densely rust-colored or gray-brown tomentum.

Morphological features Small evergreen tree, generally 3 to 4 meters high; crown is rounded, converging inward, trunk rather short. Branchlets stout, yellow-brown, densely rust-colored or gray-brown tomentose. Leaf blade leathery, lanceolate, oblanceolate, obovate, or elliptic-oblong, 12-30 centimeters long, 3-9 centimeters wide, apex acute or acuminate, base cuneate or attenuate into a petiole, upper margin sparsely serrate, base entire, glossy above, wrinkled, densely gray-brown tomentose below, lateral veins 11-21 pairs; petiole short or sessile, 6-10 millimeters long, gray-brown tomentose; stipules subulate, 1-1.5 centimeters long, apex 1-1.5 centimeters long. -1.5 cm, apex acute, hairy. Panicles terminal, 10-19 cm long, many-flowered; pedicels and pedicels densely rusty tomentose; pedicels 2-8 mm long; bracts subulate, 2-5 mm long, densely rusty tomentose; flowers 12-20 mm in diameter; calyx tube shallowly cupular, 4-5 mm long, sepals triangular-ovate, 2-3 mm long, apex acute, rusty tomentose outside of calyx tube and sepals; petals white, oblong or ovate, 5-9 mm long, 4-9 mm wide. 5-9 mm, 4-6 mm wide, base clawed, rust-colored tomentose; stamens 20, much shorter than petals, filaments basally extended; styles 5, free, stigma capitate, glabrous, ovary apically rust-colored pilose, 5-loculed, with 2 ovules per locule. Fruit globose or oblong, 2-5 cm in diam. yellow or orange, rust-colored pilose outside, soon glabrescent; seeds 1-5, globose or oblate, 1-1.5 cm in diam. brown, shiny, seed coat papery. Fl. Oct-Dec, fr. May-Jun.

Growing environment Native subtropical, requiring higher temperatures, the average annual temperature of 12 ℃ or more that can grow normally, but in the northern part of the loquat tree base in the cultivation of domesticated loquat tree annual average temperature of -10 ~ 30 ℃, no special cold weather areas can be planted. Loquat flowering in late fall and early winter, winter and spring low temperature will affect its flowering and fruiting. Temperature -6 ℃ on the flowering, -3 ℃ on the young fruit that produce frost damage; 10 ℃ above the pollen began to germinate, 20 ℃ around the pollen germination is the most suitable. However, when the air temperature or ground temperature reaches 30 ℃ or more, the branch and root growth stagnation and poor, the fruit in the picking of 7 to 15 days before the encounter of 35 ℃ high temperature, it is easy to produce sunburn injury, and even loss of food value. Loquat is not strict on soil requirements, adaptability, general soil can grow results, but more loose soil containing sand or gravel growth is better. Unlike most fruit trees, loquat blossoms in the fall or early winter, and the fruit ripens in the spring to early summer, earlier than other fruits, so it is known as "the only fruit tree that is ready for the four seasons". In most of the northern areas such as Shandong, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, etc., the cold weather will occur in winter, and it is not suitable for planting loquat trees, unless the loquat trees have been domesticated in Yancheng Dafeng and Suqian Shuyang loquat bases in the northern part of Jiangsu Province. After the excess of low temperatures in northern Jiangsu, transplanted to the north, there is a very good cold tolerance, high survival rate, basically no dead seedlings.