Question: Bloom- like apple or pear, white with pale pink blush, fragrant. blooms same time as other fruits.
Fruit- velvet or suede furry look and feel, more so than peach, retains 5 green sepals and stamens after several months, color is pale avacado and
turns a bit more gold and fur gets browner as season wears on, attached to end of 4 - 5 inch branch rather than short stem off a twig, Fruit remained
hard and was the size of apricot or a bit more at end of season, core is like apple or pear; when cut into it is hard, crisp, and extremely sweet.
cooked a long time to get tender. It was on tree almost 7 months when harvested. not a lot of flavor but "good" and sweet.
Leaf- non-shiny, leathery, veining, back paler color and velvety. emerging leaves spring green and all velvety. leaf shape is oval not heart,
leaf margin is smooth but gentle ripples- offset veining. Stems- bark smooth with some red brown, some gold brown with dark green, some gray, and all with reddish freckles (lenticels)
This year have 4 fruits ranging from 1 in diameter to almost 2 in diameter. tree almost never gets watered.

Answer: The fruit in question is commonly known as medlar (Mespilus germanica L.). It is closely related to apples, pears and quince. You can find it on page 2043-2044 of Bailey's Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture (the one published back in the nineteen teens--I didn't look in Hortus Third, but am sure that it's there, too).

Julian Sauls, Extension Citrus Specialist, Weslaco, Texas.