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Apple
Malus spp.
47.57, -122.652
Field Notes
Description:
Malus ( /ˈmeɪləs/[2] or /ˈmæləs/), the apples, are a genus of about 30–35 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae. Other studies go as far as 55 species[3] including the domesticated Orchard Apple, or Table apple as it was formerly called (M. domestica, derived from M. sieversii, syn. M. pumila). The other species and subspecies are generally known as "wild apples", "crab apples", "crabapples" or "crabs".
The genus is native to the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, in Europe, Asia and North America.
Apple trees are typically 4–12 m tall at maturity, with a dense, twiggy crown. The leaves are 3–10 cm long, alternate, simple, with a serrated margin. The flowers are borne in corymbs, and have five petals, which may be white, pink or red, and are perfect, with usually red stamens that produce copious pollen, and a half-inferior ovary; flowering occurs in the spring after 50–80 growing degree days (varying greatly according to subspecies and cultivar).
Notes:
Apples require cross-pollination between individuals by insects (typically bees, which freely visit the flowers for both nectar and pollen); all are self-sterile, and (with the exception of a few specially developed cultivars) self-pollination is impossible, making pollinating insects essential. Malus species, including domestic apples, hybridize freely. Malus species are used as food plants by the larvae of a large number of Lepidoptera species; see list of Lepidoptera that feed on Malus.
Hybrid Crabapple grown for its flowering.The fruit is a globose pome, varying in size from 1–4 cm diameter in most of the wild species, to 6 cm in M. sylvestris sieversii, 8 cm in M. sylvestris domestica, and even larger in certain cultivated orchard apples; among the largest-fruited cultivars (all of which originate in North America) are 'Wolf River' and 'Stark Jumbo' . The centre of the fruit contains five carpels arranged star-like, each containing one to two (rarely three) seeds.
One species, Malus trilobata from southwest Asia, has three- to seven-lobed leaves (superficially resembling a maple leaf) and with several structural differences in the fruit; it is often treated in a genus of its own, as Eriolobus trilobatus.
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