The World of Apples

Words of the orchard

The terms used across the atlas and in the old pomologies, for the parts of the fruit, the ways trees are raised, grafted, trained and stored, the classes of cider apple and the old English names for kinds of apple. Where the sources differ, the entry says so.

A

Apple

The English word goes back to Old English æppel, which meant “apple” but also “any kind of fruit; fruit in general”1. In Middle English, and as late as the 17th century, apple was a general word for any fruit other than berries, nuts included1. French pomme, one of the words for apple in other languages, comes from a different root, Latin pomum, “apple; fruit”1.

B

Basin

The hollow at the blossom end of an apple, the end farthest from the stalk, in which the eye is set; Warder explained that this end “is often more or less depressed; hence the term basin”2. Descriptions call it deep or shallow, narrow or wide, angular or plaited2,3,4.

Biennial bearing

The habit of cropping heavily one year and bearing little or nothing the next5. Some varieties are biennial by nature, but incorrect pruning, the weather and the fertility of the soil can all contribute5; cider growers speak of “on” and “off” years6. Thinning the fruit helps to even out such cropping7.

Biffin

A red cooking apple, and the baked, dried apples made from it8,3. The word is a form of beefing: in Norfolk the apples of the Norfolk Beefing were baked in ovens to make the dried “Norfolk Biffins” sold by confectioners and fruiterers3. Collins traces the name to the colour of beef, while Hogg thought it came from “the similarity the baked fruit presents to beef”8,3.

Bittersharp

In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple whose juice is high in both acid (more than 0.45%) and tannin (more than 0.2%)9,10. Kingston Black, Stoke Red and Broxwood Foxwhelp are bittersharps9. Andrew Lea counts Kingston Black as the cultivar that comes nearest to the ideal cider juice, though it is now scarcely grown commercially because it is prone to canker6.

Bittersweet

In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple whose juice is low in acid (less than 0.45%) but high in tannin (more than 0.2%)9. A 2025 study measured the tannin as total polyphenols, a key cause of the bitterness and astringency of cider10. Dabinett, Yarlington Mill and Medaille d’Or are bittersweets9; a cider made only from heavy bittersweets may have too little acid and too much tannin6.

Budding

Grafting with a single bud of the chosen variety instead of a shoot11. In chip budding, a bud on a sliver of wood and bark is set into a matching notch cut in the rootstock; the Royal Horticultural Society advises doing it between midsummer and early autumn, whereas T-budding can be done only in midsummer11.

C

Calvados

Brandy distilled from cider and perry, named after the Calvados department of Normandy12,13. Under its appellation it is made in Normandy and parts of neighbouring departments, may be distilled once in a column still or twice, and must be aged for at least two years in oak13. Calvados Pays d’Auge, in 1942 the first cider brandy to be recognised as an appellation d’origine contrôlée, must contain at least 70% apples and be distilled twice; Calvados Domfrontais must contain at least 30% perry pears, be distilled in column stills and be aged for at least three years14,15.

Calville

A group of old French apples with prominent ribs that run down to the eye, which Hogg called “the true character of the Calvilles”16,17. In Diel’s German classification, as given by Warder, true Calvilles taper towards the eye, carry a bloom on the tree, grow greasy in store and have light, delicate flesh18. The French Trésor de la langue française derives the name from Calleville, a commune in the Eure department, while Littré calls its origin unknown17,19.

Cavity

The hollow at the stalk end of an apple, in which the stalk is set; Warder used the word where the stalk’s attachment “is so depressed as to constitute what is called the Cavity”2. It is described as deep or shallow, wide or narrow, even or lipped, and may be lined with russet2,3.

Chance seedling

A tree that grew from a seed by chance, rather than being planted, bought or bred on purpose20. McIntosh began as one of several seedlings that John McIntosh found growing on his farm near Dundela, Ontario20. A seedling whose seed parent is known, but whose pollen could have come from any compatible apple flowering nearby, is called open-pollinated20.

Chilling requirement

The amount of winter cold a tree needs while dormant before it will break bud, flower and fruit normally, counted in chill hours21,22. One model counts every hour below 7.2 °C (45 °F) from 1 October, while the University of Arkansas counts only the hours between 0 and 7.2 °C (32 and 45 °F)21,22. The need varies with the variety: Mississippi State University puts apples at 200 to 1,000 hours, the University of Arkansas at 800 to 1,00021,22.

Cider

In Britain, an alcoholic drink made from fermented apple juice; in the United States and Canada, sweet cider is unfermented apple juice and the fermented drink is hard cider23. The word reached English in the 13th century through Anglo-French from the Late Latin sicera, “alcoholic drink”, which goes back through Greek to Hebrew shēkhār24.

Cider apple

A variety grown for making cider25. Cider apples are classed by the acid and tannin of their juice as sweets, sharps, bittersweets and bittersharps, the Long Ashton classification9,10; the sweets and sharps used in cider are generally culinary varieties, while bittersweets and bittersharps are less widely available10. In New York, Beach wrote in 1905, the fruit of the old ungrafted seedling orchards went for stock feed and cider and was “often called cider apples”26.

Clone

A group of genetically identical plants raised from a single parent by asexual means such as cuttings or grafting27. Apple varieties are propagated by grafting scions onto rootstocks28: the fruiting part of every McIntosh tree descends vegetatively from the original tree, though its roots usually belong to a different apple20.

Club variety

A new variety whose growing and selling are restricted to the members of a club, also called a managed variety: Brown and Maloney described varieties that are patented and trademarked, then grown and marketed by a club, “with access to grow the variety limited to club members”29. In 2009 they counted “well over 30 club varieties”, most of them grown outside the United States, and noted that each one’s success depends on the variety and on the club’s marketing29. Some arrangements cap the area that may be planted, or set quality standards that fruit must meet to be sold under the brand29.

Codlin

Also codling: any of several long, tapering cooking apples, and an old word for an unripe apple30. Hogg counted the English Codlin among “our oldest English apples” and recalled a national dish of “Codlins and cream”31. Collins traces the word to a 15th-century form, querdlyng, of uncertain origin, while Hogg derived it from coddle, to parboil30,31.

Controlled-atmosphere storage

Cold storage in sealed rooms in which the oxygen is lowered, from about 21% in ordinary air to as little as 1% depending on the variety, and the carbon dioxide, temperature and humidity are controlled, so that the fruit breathes and ripens more slowly32. With it, says the Northwest Horticultural Council (2023), many apple varieties can be kept for 12 months or more32. It grew from the “gas storage” work of F. Kidd and C. West, who showed that the refrigerated storage life of certain varieties of English-grown apples could be appreciably extended in an atmosphere with less oxygen and more carbon dioxide than air33.

Cooking apple

An apple grown mainly for cooking; the Royal Horticultural Society divides apple varieties into dessert (eating) and culinary (cooking) kinds, some being dual-purpose34. Hogg’s Fruit Manual of 1884 kept separate lists of the best dessert, kitchen and cider apples35. Many culinary apples grow sweeter in store, so that they can be eaten as dessert apples from late winter34. Bramley’s Seedling is a culinary apple whose juice averaged 0.85% malic acid in Long Ashton’s analyses of 1905 to 19755,9.

Cordon

A tree restricted by pruning to a single main stem, upright or at 45 degrees, with short fruiting side shoots (spurs)36. Cordons need spur-bearing varieties, because pruning that shortens the shoot tips reduces the crop of a tip bearer37.

Core

The centre of the apple, formed by the carpels, or seed cells, which “constitute what is popularly called the core”; there are generally five, occasionally four38. Pomologists describe the shape of the cells and whether they reach the axis of the fruit (axile) or stand apart from it (abaxile)38.

Costard

A large, ribbed apple, one of “our oldest English apples”: “Poma Costard” appear in the fruiterers’ bills of Edward I in 1292, when they sold for a shilling a hundred39. Its sellers were called costardmongers, a name later worn down to costermongers39. Collins and Hogg both connect the name with the apple’s ribs, the one through Old French and the other through Latin, while Dr Johnson had derived it from cost, a head; costard was also old humorous slang for the head40,39.

Crab apple

Any of the wild or cultivated trees of the genus Malus, relatives of the cultivated apple, that bear small sour fruit; also the fruit itself41. Crab apples can be planted to pollinate apple trees42,6.

Cross

A seedling raised by crossing two genetically different parents, which gives offspring with new combinations of genes27. Recorded parentages are not always right: DNA work has disproved every tested pedigree that named a triploid as the parent of a diploid variety, and has shown that the second parent of Cox’s Orange Pippin was Rosemary Russet43.

Cross-pollination

The carrying of pollen from the flowers of one variety to those of another5. Most apples are not self-fertile and need a pollinator, a different variety that flowers at the same time, chosen from the same pollination group or an adjoining one5; the cultivated apple is self-incompatible28.

Cultivar

A cultivated variety: a variety of plant that originated and persists in cultivation44. The word, a blend of cultivated and variety, is first recorded in 192344. Gardeners and growers use variety for the same thing, though in botany a variety is a naturally occurring form of a species5.

D

Dessert apple

An apple for eating raw, also called an eating apple45,34. Dessert apples are thinned less hard than cooking apples7. Cox’s Orange Pippin is a dessert apple that Long Ashton’s analyses class as a sharp9.

Diploid

Having two sets of chromosomes46. The apple is a diploid species: each cell of the tree has 34 chromosomes, two sets of 1747. Most apple varieties are diploid, though triploid and tetraploid varieties are also known28.

Dual-purpose apple

A variety used both for dessert and for cooking, such as Charles Ross or Blenheim Orange; the Royal Horticultural Society warns that dual-purpose apples are “seldom excellent for either use”5,34.

Dwarfing rootstock

A rootstock that keeps the tree grafted on it small; it is the rootstock that largely controls a tree’s size and vigour5. The Royal Horticultural Society grades the common apple rootstocks from M27 (extremely dwarfing, making a bush 1.2 to 1.8 m tall) through M9 and M26 (dwarfing) and MM106 (semi-dwarfing) to MM111 (vigorous) and M25 (very vigorous)36. Dwarf trees can be planted more closely and are easier to pick, which is why commercial growers prefer them48.

E

Espalier

A fruit tree trained flat against a wall or fence, with a central stem and tiers of horizontal branches, typically three or four of them, reaching about 1.8 m in height36,49. Like the cordon, it suits spur-bearing varieties rather than tip-bearers37. The word is French, from the Italian for shoulder, and is recorded in English from 166250.

Eye

The remains of the flower’s calyx at the end of the apple opposite the stalk, set in the basin; this end is commonly called the blossom end38,2. Hogg called the calyx segments “what is technically called the eye”, and Warder used the word for the space they enclose, where the remains of the stamens and pistils are found38,2. Descriptions call the eye open or closed, with its segments erect, convergent or reflexed2,51.

F

Family tree

A tree with three varieties grafted onto it, as the Royal Horticultural Society describes it, for a garden with room for only one tree; the most vigorous variety may take over unless the tree is pruned with care34.

Fireblight

A bacterial disease, caused by Erwinia amylovora, that kills the shoots of apples, pears and related plants and leaves them looking scorched by fire52. The bacterium is native to North America; it usually enters through the blossom, and it was accidentally introduced into the United Kingdom in 195752. The dwarfing rootstocks M.9 and M.26 are extremely susceptible, and resistance to fireblight was a main aim in breeding the G series53.

Flesh

The edible part of the apple, which botanically grows from the greatly swollen receptacle, the floral cup (hypanthium) that encloses the carpels, and not from the carpels themselves54,55. Descriptions record its colour, texture, juice and flavour, as in Hogg’s account of the Norfolk Beefing: “firm and crisp, with a brisk and pleasant flavour”3.

G

G series

Apple rootstocks named with the prefix G., such as G.16, G.41, G.202 and G.935, from the breeding programme that James Cummins and Herb Aldwinckle began at Cornell University in 1968, with trials at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York53. Its aim was rootstocks resistant to fireblight and crown rot, common in eastern North America; fireblight can kill trees through the susceptible M.9 and M.26 rootstocks, and some G rootstocks also resist woolly apple aphid53. In 1998 it became a joint programme with the United States Department of Agriculture53.

Grafting

Joining a shoot or bud of one plant (the scion) to the roots of another (the rootstock) so that the two grow together as one plant, combining the fruiting qualities of the first with the vigour or resilience of the second11. Apple varieties do not come true from seed, so they are propagated by budding or grafting26,28. The word goes back, through Anglo-French and Latin, to a Greek word for a writing stylus56.

Ground colour

The base colour of an apple’s skin, usually green or yellow, over which any red flush, stripes or russet lie51. Hogg sorted apples by it: “pale” fruit is uniformly yellow or green, “striped” fruit carries distinct red stripes on the ground colour, “coloured” fruit is wholly or partly a decided red, and a “russet” skin is one mostly covered with russet51.

H

Heritage variety

An old variety still in cultivation; also called an heirloom, “a variety of plant that has originated under cultivation and that has survived for several generations usually due to the efforts of private individuals”57. The Royal Horticultural Society notes that local and heritage varieties are increasingly popular, though modern varieties are often more resistant to disease58.

J

June drop

The natural shedding of many young fruitlets in early summer59. In the Royal Horticultural Society’s account for British gardens, it peaks about eight weeks after flowering, in early July, and can go on until mid-July; apples are large fruits, and one flower in twenty setting fruit can make a full crop59. Any thinning is best left until the drop is over59.

K

Keeper

An apple that keeps well in store60. American pomologists who sorted apples by season into summer, autumn and winter fruits sometimes wished to add a fourth group, “Spring, or long-keepers”61.

Keeving

A traditional way of making naturally sweet cider, in which the juice is clarified by enzymes before a slow fermentation by wild yeasts62. Pectin in the juice forms a gel with calcium that rises and carries away much of the yeast and its nutrients, so that the fermentation slows and can stop with sugar left in the cider62. Andrew Lea notes that it now has widespread commercial use only in France, for sweet, naturally sparkling cider in the Normandy style62.

Kernel

In English apple names, a seedling: Hogg called kernel the English equivalent of the French word that gave pippin, as in Ashmead’s Kernel, “the seedling raised by Dr. Ashmead, of Gloucester”63.

L

Lenticel

One of the small natural openings in the skin of a fruit or stem through which it exchanges gases with the air64,65. On apples they show as tiny flecks or dots66, and lenticel breakdown is a disorder of the skin around them65. The word comes from a New Latin diminutive of the Latin for lentil64.

Long Ashton classification

The division of cider apples into four classes by the acid and tannin in their juice, drawn up by B. T. P. Barker, first director of the Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol, founded in 1903 to work on cider: sharp (acid above 0.45%, tannin below 0.2%), bittersharp (both above), bittersweet (acid below, tannin above) and sweet (both below)9. It is still the most widely recognised system10. Andrew Lea’s list of the best cider varieties grades bittersweets and bittersharps as mild, medium or full, and picks out a vintage quality that the figures do not capture6.

M

Maiden

A one-year-old tree on a single stem; a feathered maiden has side shoots, while an unfeathered maiden, or whip, has none49.

Malic acid

An acid found in apples and other fruits, named, through French, from the Latin for apple67. The acidity of apple juice is expressed as malic acid: in Andrew Lea’s table of typical juices, Bramley juice has more than 1%, Cox about 0.5% and a typical bittersweet less than 0.2%9,6.

Malling series

The apple rootstocks numbered M (for Malling) by the fruit research station at East Malling in Kent, founded in 191368,48. Under Ronald Hatton the station gathered the confused “Paradise” rootstocks from growers in Britain, France, the Netherlands and Germany, classified them by the trees they produced, and on 5 September 1917 published the first nine recommended types; the series later ran to 27 numbers, not in order of size48. One of them, Jaune de Metz, a chance seedling found near Metz and recorded in 1879, became M9, which remains the most used rootstock in the world48. The MM (Malling-Merton) series, bred with the John Innes Institute at Merton, was designed to resist woolly apple aphid69,48.

Malus

The genus of the apples and crab apples, in the rose family (Rosaceae), with very approximately 30 species native to Asia, Europe and North America55. It is set apart from its relatives by carpels fused together and wholly enclosed in the floral cup (hypanthium), with one or two seeds in each cell55. The cultivated apple, Malus domestica, begins with the wild Malus sieversii of Central Asia, hybridised on a large scale with other wild apples, above all Malus sylvestris70. Malus is Latin for the apple tree71.

N

Nonpareil

“Having no equal”, from French: the name of an old dessert apple with a yellowish-green skin patched with thin grey russet, which Hogg ranked among the most esteemed and popular of English dessert apples72,73. It was generally held to have come from France, and Switzer recorded a tradition that it was “first brought out of France and planted by a Jesuit in Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth’s time”73. Other varieties also bear the name, such as Ross Nonpareil74.

O

Orchard

A planting of fruit trees75. The word comes from Old English; its second part is the ancestor of yard, and Merriam-Webster derives the first from the Latin for garden75.

P

Paradise

An old name for dwarfing apple rootstocks, used for at least 500 years for small apple trees, and traced by Apples and People to a Persian word for an enclosed garden48. Hogg recommended the Nonpareil “on the paradise stock”, and for growing in pots “the pomme paradis of the French”73. Over the centuries the Paradise stocks became confused, until East Malling collected the “Paradise” and “Doucin” stocks, confirmed their identity and numbered them as the Malling series48,69.

Pearmain

An old English name for a kind of apple, now carried by many varieties such as Worcester Pearmain; Collins defines pearmains as apples with a red skin76,37. Hogg called the Pearmain “the oldest English apple on record”, tracing its cultivation in Norfolk to the year 1200 through a tenure paid with two hundred Pearmains and four hogsheads of cider made from them4. The origin of the name is disputed: Collins derives it from Old French permain, a kind of pear, perhaps from the Latin for “of Parma”, while Hogg took it to mean “the Great Pear Apple”, which “ought to be a long or pear-shaped apple”76,4.

Pip

The seed of an apple or a similar fruit77. The word is short for pippin and is recorded in this sense from 177377.

Pippin

At first an apple tree raised from a pip, as against one raised by grafting, and later the name of many varieties63,74. Hogg derived the word from the French pepin, the seed of an apple, and read the Golden Pippin as “simply Golden Seedling”63. Collins now defines a pippin as an eating apple of rounded, flattened shape, Merriam-Webster as a crisp, tart apple used especially for cooking78,79. Cox’s Orange Pippin and Ribston Pippin carry the name74.

Pollination group

A group of varieties that flower at about the same time5. For a good crop an apple needs a pollinator of another variety from its own group or an adjoining one; the Royal Horticultural Society numbers its groups from 1 (very early) to 7, while some suppliers use letters, A for 1, B for 2 and so on74,5. A triploid needs two other varieties that are not triploid74.

Pomace

The pulp of apples or similar fruit left after crushing and pressing, as in cider-making80. The word comes from a Medieval Latin word for cider, from the Latin for apple80.

Pome

The kind of fruit borne by the apple and its relatives, the pear and quince among them: a fleshy fruit formed from an enlarged receptacle that encloses the ovary and seeds, around a leathery core54,55. The word comes through Old French from the Latin for apple54.

Pomology

The science and practice of growing fruit; the word, built on the Latin for fruit, is first recorded in 181881.

Pomona

The Roman goddess of fruit trees, whose name comes from the Latin for apple or fruit82,1. It became a title for illustrated books of fruit, such as T. A. Knight’s Pomona Herefordiensis (1811) and The Herefordshire Pomona, issued in parts in the 1870s and 1880s83,84.

R

Reinette

A large family of apples, usually French in origin85. In Diel’s classification, as given by Warder, reinettes have fine-grained, crisp, firm flesh, skins dotted or patched with russet, and a rich, sugary, brisk flavour “called the Reinette flavor”18. In English the word was also written rennet1. Its origin is disputed: it has been read as the French for “little queen” or for “little frog”, from the freckled skin, while Hogg derived it from the Latin for “renewed”, a reinette being a grafted apple86,1.

Rootstock

The lower part of a grafted tree, which supplies its roots; also called the stock87. Rootstocks control the eventual size of a tree and can add to its resistance to disease36. Apple rootstocks are generally propagated by layering: the young plant is cut back near the ground, its new shoots are earthed up so that each forms roots, and they are separated in autumn48.

Russet

A rough, brownish coat on the skin of an apple, and any apple whose skin is largely covered with it88,89. Hogg classed as russets the apples in which “a russet coat prevails”, but Collins also gives russeting as abnormal roughness caused by parasites, pesticides or frost51,89; Warder noted that the amount on one variety could vary with the place where it grew2. The word comes through Anglo-French from the Latin for red, and it names varieties such as Egremont Russet88,74.

S

Scab

A fungal disease of apples, caused by Venturia inaequalis, that marks the leaves and fruit with dark, scabby blotches90. It spreads by airborne spores and survives the winter on fallen leaves; light attacks only blemish the skin, but scabbed fruit that cracks is prone to rots and will not store90. Wójcik and colleagues call it the most destructive fungal disease of the apple91.

Scion

The shoot or bud of the chosen variety that is grafted onto a rootstock and grows into the part of the tree above the graft11,92. The word comes from Anglo-French and is related to an Old French word for a shoot or offspring92.

Scrumpy

A rough, dry cider, made especially in the West Country of England; the name comes from dialect scrump, in an old sense meaning withered, for the apples used93.

Seedling

A young plant grown from seed94. Cultivated apples “seldom, if ever, reproduce true from seed”: seedlings of red apples may bear green or yellow fruit, and seedlings of sour apples sweet fruit26,70. Beach, writing in 1905, called the fruit of ungrafted trees “natural” or “seedling” fruit, in distinction from grafted fruit; a chance seedling is one that came up unplanned26,20.

Self-fertile

Able to set fruit with its own pollen; most apples are not, and need a pollinator of another variety5. The cultivated apple is described as self-incompatible28. The Royal Horticultural Society lists a few apples as self-fertile or partly so, among them James Grieve and Sunset5.

Sharp

In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple whose juice is high in acid (more than 0.45%) but low in tannin (less than 0.2%)9. Browns Apple and Frederick are sharps; so, by analysis, are the culinary Bramley’s Seedling and the dessert Cox’s Orange Pippin9.

Sport

A shoot, branch or whole tree that differs suddenly from its parent variety because of a mutation in the tissue of a bud, hence also bud sport or bud mutation, and keeps the new character when propagated by grafting95,27. In 1905 Beach noted that sports usually keep their characters when propagated, “entitling the sport to be called a new variety”96. Many modern strains are sports: in 2023 Ban and Jung counted reports of at least 38 sports of Gala since its release in 1965, and 91 of Fuji27.

Spur

A short, branched shoot on older wood that bears fruit buds; most apple varieties carry their fruit on spurs37. Spur-type strains, some of which arose as sports, have a compact habit; because they are not vigorous, they should not be grafted on a very dwarfing rootstock such as M.942,27.

Stock

The plant on which a scion is grafted, which supplies the roots of the grafted tree87. In top-working, the established tree being changed to a new variety is the stock97.

Sweet

In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple whose juice is low in both acid (less than 0.45%) and tannin (less than 0.2%), such as Sweet Coppin or Sweet Alford9. In North America, sweet cider means unfermented apple juice23.

T

Tetraploid

Having four times the basic set of chromosomes, which in the apple is a set of 1798,47. Tetraploid apples are kept in collections mainly for crossing with diploids to breed triploids, and tetraploid forms of existing varieties have been produced in the laboratory91.

Thinning

Removing some of the young fruits to improve the size and quality of the rest, to keep branches from breaking under a heavy crop, and to even out cropping that swings between heavy and light years7. It follows the June drop; cooking apples are thinned to one fruit every 15 to 23 cm, dessert apples less hard, to one or two every 10 to 15 cm59,7.

Tip bearer

A variety that bears much of its fruit at the tips of the previous year’s long shoots and has few spurs; true tip-bearers such as Irish Peach and Cornish Gilliflower are relatively uncommon, while many varieties, among them Bramley’s Seedling, Discovery and Worcester Pearmain, are partial tip-bearers37. Pruning that shortens the shoot tips reduces their crop, so they suit cordons and espaliers poorly37.

Top-working

Changing an established tree to another variety by cutting it back and grafting scions of the new variety onto it, leaving one or two “nurse limbs” to feed the tree in the meantime97. Cider growers use it to replace poor varieties with better ones6.

Triploid

Having three times the basic set of chromosomes, instead of the usual two99,43. Wójcik and colleagues put triploids at about 10% of the apple varieties grown in 2022; they tend to grow strongly and bear larger fruit, but their fertility is strongly reduced91,43. Because their pollen is sterile, each needs two other, non-triploid varieties nearby, one to pollinate it and another to pollinate that pollinator; Bramley’s Seedling, Ribston Pippin and Blenheim Orange are triploids74,5. For over half the historic triploids tested, DNA has identified a diploid parent that passed on an unreduced, double set of chromosomes43.

V

Variety

In gardening and the fruit trade, a named and distinct kind of plant, the same as a cultivar5. The UPOV Convention defines a variety as a plant grouping that can be told from any other by at least one characteristic and is “considered as a unit with regard to its suitability for being propagated unchanged”100. In botany the word is also a rank below the species, for naturally occurring forms5,55.

Variety denomination

The official name of a variety, registered when plant breeders’ rights are granted, which serves as its “generic designation”100. It must identify the variety, must not mislead, and must stay free for anyone to use with the variety, even after the breeder’s rights expire100. A trade mark may be used alongside it when the variety is sold, but the denomination “must nevertheless be easily recognizable”100; many new apples are marketed under trade marks that differ from their variety names, sometimes under different names in different regions29.

Vintage quality

The hard-to-define excellence that makes some cider apples give better cider than others, even when they are not the heaviest croppers or the easiest to grow; Andrew Lea notes that there is no clear understanding of what it means in chemical terms6,9.

W

Wassail

An old English toast to someone’s health, and the hot spiced drink of wine, beer or cider shared at Christmas101. In orchard country, wassailing is a Twelfth Night custom of visiting the orchard to sing, make a din and drink, so as to drive off bad spirits and please the spirits of the fruit trees and ensure a good crop; at some wassails, slices of toast soaked in cider are tied to the branches102. Merriam-Webster derives the word from Old Norse for “be well”, the National Trust from Old English for “be hale”101,102.

Winter apple

A late-ripening apple that keeps well into winter103. Older American pomologies grouped apples by season as summer, autumn and winter fruits, to which some wished to add “Spring, or long-keepers”61.

Where the sources disagree

  • Biffin: the colour of beef, in Collins, or the look of the baked fruit, in Hogg8,3.
  • Calville: from Calleville in the Eure, in the Trésor de la langue française; of unknown origin in Littré, which notes Ménage’s suggestion of a place called Calville near Lyon17,19.
  • Chilling requirement: Mississippi State University describes a model that counts every hour below 7.2 °C, and gives apples 200 to 1,000 hours; the University of Arkansas counts only hours between 0 and 7.2 °C, and gives 800 to 1,00021,22.
  • Codlin: Collins gives a 15th-century form of uncertain origin and also carries Webster’s New World, which derives it from an Anglo-French phrase meaning “heart of lion”; Hogg derived it from coddle, to parboil30,31.
  • Costard: Collins and Hogg connect the name with the apple’s ribs; Dr Johnson, as Hogg reports, derived it from a word for the head40,39.
  • Pearmain: Collins derives it from an Old French name for a kind of pear, perhaps from Parma, and also carries Webster’s New World, which calls the Parma link folk etymology and prefers an Old French word meaning “to remain”, for the apple’s long keeping; Hogg read it as “the Great Pear Apple”76,4.
  • Pippin: an eating apple in Collins, an apple used especially for cooking in Merriam-Webster78,79.
  • Reinette: “little queen”, “little frog”, or Hogg’s “renewed”86,1.
  • Wassail: from Old Norse in Merriam-Webster, from Old English in the National Trust’s account101,102.

Sources

  1. apple (n.), Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary. Supports: Apple: Old English æppel "apple; any kind of fruit; fruit in general"; in Middle English and "as late as 17c." a general word for all fruit other than berries, including nuts; French pomme from Latin pomum "apple; fruit". Pomona: from Latin pomum (linked entry shown on the page). Reinette: the English rennet, a variety of apple, from Old French rainette, read either as "frog" or as "little queen" (linked entry shown on the page).
  2. American Pomology: Apples, characters of fruits (basin, eye and cavity), John A. Warder, Orange Judd and Company, New York; Internet Archive, 1867. Supports: Basin: the end most distant from the stem, "commonly called the blossom end", "often more or less depressed; hence the term basin"; deep, shallow, abrupt or narrow. Eye: the meeting of the calyx segments and the space they enclose, holding the remains of the stamens and pistils; open or closed, segments converging or reflexed. Cavity: the attachment of the stem "so depressed as to constitute what is called the Cavity"; deep or shallow, wide or narrow, lipped. Russet: its amount on one variety varies with the locality (pp. 359-362).
  3. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Norfolk Beefing, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Biffin: Norfolk Beefing apples "baked in ovens" in Norfolk to form the dried fruits called "Norfolk Biffins"; the name from "the similarity the baked fruit presents to beef". Basin and cavity: the eye "set in a rather deep and angular basin", the stalk in "a deep and russety cavity". Flesh: "firm and crisp, with a brisk and pleasant flavour" (pp. 159-160).
  4. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Pearmain (Old Pearmain), Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Pearmain: "the oldest English apple on record"; its cultivation in Norfolk traced "back to the year 1200" through a tenure paid with "two hundred Pearmains and four hogsheads of cider"; the name read as "the Great Pear Apple", which "ought to be a long or pear-shaped apple". Basin: the eye "set in a wide, plaited basin".
  5. Fruit trees: choosing the best, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Biennial bearing: apples crop "heavily in one year then produce little or nothing the next"; some varieties naturally biennial, with incorrect pruning, weather and soil fertility contributing. Dwarfing rootstock: the rootstock "largely controls the size and vigour of the tree". Cross-pollination, self-fertile and pollination group: pollination defined; most apples "are not self-fertile but need a pollinator"; partner from the same or adjoining group; letters A, B for groups 1, 2; triploids need a third cultivar; James Grieve and Sunset among the self or partly self-fertile apples. Cooking apple: Bramley's Seedling listed as culinary. Dual-purpose apple: Charles Ross and Blenheim Orange. Cultivar and variety: the page's definition of cultivar and of the botanical sense of variety.
  6. The Science of Cidermaking, Part 2: Fruit and Cultivation, Andrew Lea, Craft Cider Making (cider.org.uk). Supports: Biennial bearing: "'on' one year and 'off' the next". Bittersharp: Kingston Black approximates the ideal cider apple but is "scarcely grown commercially" because of its susceptibility to canker. Bittersweet: a cider made entirely from heavy bittersweets "may have insufficient acid and too much tannin". Long Ashton classification: mild, medium and full grades in the list of vintage-quality cultivars. Vintage quality: an "elusive characteristic", with "no clear understanding" of its chemistry. Malic acid: Bramley over 1%, Cox 0.5%, a typical bittersweet under 0.2%. Crab apple: Malus crabs planted as pollinators. Top-working: topworking poor varieties to better ones.
  7. Fruit thinning, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Thinning: removing excess young fruits to improve fruit size and quality, prevent branches breaking and even out cropping "when a tree fruits heavy one year and poorly the next"; cooking apples one fruit every 15-23 cm, dessert apples one or two every 10-15 cm. Biennial bearing and dessert apple: the same.
  8. biffin, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Biffin: "a variety of red cooking apple"; the name from beefin, ox for slaughter, "referring to the apple's colour".
  9. Cider Apple Compositional Data, Andrew Lea, Craft Cider Making (cider.org.uk). Supports: Long Ashton classification: Long Ashton Research Station founded in 1903 to work on cider, first director Professor B. T. P. Barker; his classification by acid and tannin: sharp (acid over 0.45%, tannin under 0.2%), bittersharp (over 0.45, over 0.2), bittersweet (under 0.45, over 0.2), sweet (under 0.45, under 0.2); still the basis of classification; the station near Bristol. Bittersharp: Kingston Black, Stoke Red, Broxwood Foxwhelp. Bittersweet: Dabinett, Yarlington Mill, Medaille d'Or. Sharp: Browns Apple, Frederick; Bramley's Seedling (culinary, 0.85% malic acid in composite Long Ashton data of 1905-1975) and Cox's Orange Pippin (dessert) class as sharps. Sweet: Sweet Coppin, Sweet Alford. Vintage quality: cultivars generally regarded as having it. Malic acid: acidity expressed as malic acid.
  10. A bittersweet symphony: genetic insights into cider apple fruit quality, Pierre Bouillon and others, G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics 16(1): jkaf241; PubMed Central, 19 October 2025. Supports: Long Ashton classification: "the most widely recognized system", four groups by tannin and titratable acidity: sharp (low tannin, high acid), sweet (low, low), bittersweet (high tannin, low acid), bittersharp (high, high). Bittersweet: tannin measured as total polyphenols, "a key determinant of bitterness and astringency". Cider apple: sweets and sharps used for cider "are generally culinary cultivars", bittersweets and bittersharps "less commonly available".
  11. Chip budding, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Budding: in chip budding "a bud on a sliver of wood, complete with bark, is inserted into a matching notch on the rootstock", between mid-summer and early autumn, while T-budding "can only be carried out in mid-summer". Grafting and scion: the page's definitions, grafting joining "the roots of one plant to the stem of another" to combine fruiting qualities with the rootstock's "vigour or resilience"; the scion "a shoot (or bud) cut from a chosen plant" for grafting or budding.
  12. calvados, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Calvados: an apple brandy named from Calvados, a department in Normandy.
  13. Calvados, Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO). Supports: Calvados: a spirit from cider apples and perry pears, distilled from ciders and perries; aged in oak for at least two years; distilled twice or once in column stills; made in most of former Lower Normandy and parts of the Eure, Seine-Maritime, Mayenne, Sarthe and Oise.
  14. Calvados Pays d'Auge, Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO). Supports: Calvados: Calvados Pays d'Auge at least 70% apples, double distillation only, at least two years in oak; "la première eau-de-vie de cidre à être reconnue, en 1942, en appellation d'origine contrôlée".
  15. Calvados Domfrontais, Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO). Supports: Calvados: Calvados Domfrontais at least 30% perry pears, distilled only in column stills, aged at least three years in oak.
  16. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Calville Blanche d'Eté, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Calville: "prominent ribs on the sides, which extend to the eye and form ridges round the apex", "the true character of the Calvilles".
  17. Étymologie de CALVILLE (Trésor de la langue française), Centre national de ressources textuelles et lexicales (CNRTL). Supports: Calville: a French apple; the name from the commune of Calleville (département de l'Eure), where this kind of apple came from.
  18. American Pomology: Apples, Diel's classification, John A. Warder, Orange Judd and Company, New York; Internet Archive, 1867. Supports: Calville: true Calvilles taper toward the eye, are "covered with bloom when on the tree", have or acquire "by keeping, an unctuous skin" and have "light, spongy, delicate flesh". Reinette: "fine grained, delicate, crisp, firm flesh"; "gray dotted, or have russety patches"; "the Reinette flavor" (pp. 369-371).
  19. calville, Dictionnaire Littré (littre.org). Supports: Calville: "Origine inconnue", with Ménage's note of a place called Calville near Lyon.
  20. 10 Neat Things about Apple Varieties, Cultivation Network of Canada. Supports: Chance seedling: a tree that appeared "without being planted", "not a tree they had purchased or deliberately bred"; McIntosh from seedlings John McIntosh found on his farm near Dundela, Ontario; "Open pollinated means the maternal parent was known, but the pollen could have arrived from any compatible apple flowering nearby". Clone: the fruiting part of every McIntosh tree a vegetative descendant of the original tree, its roots usually of a different apple.
  21. Chilling Hour Requirements of Fruit Crops (Publication 3067), Eric T. Stafne, Mississippi State University Extension Service. Supports: Chilling requirement: chilling needed "to break dormancy, grow, and fruit normally"; one model counts "each hour below 45°F starting on October 1"; apples 200-1,000 hours; "Actual hours needed depends on variety".
  22. Chill Hours and Heat Units for Fruit Production, University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Supports: Chilling requirement: cold needed during dormancy "to break bud and flower"; chilling hours are those "below 45 °F and above 32° F"; apple 800-1,000 hours.
  23. cider, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Cider: in British English an alcoholic drink of fermented apple juice, called hard cider in the US; sweet cider (US and Canadian) an unfermented drink of apple juice. Sweet: the same.
  24. cider, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Cider: from Anglo-French, from Late Latin (Vulgate) sicera "alcoholic drink", from Greek, from Hebrew shēkhār; first known use 13th century.
  25. cider-apple, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Cider apple: "a variety of apple suitable for use in cider-making".
  26. The Apples of New York, volume I: primitive orchards, S. A. Beach, New York Agricultural Experiment Station; Internet Archive, 1905. Supports: Seedling and grafting: cultivated apples "seldom, if ever, reproduce true from seed"; seedlings of red apples may bear green or yellow fruit, of sour apples sweet fruit; varieties propagated "by budding or grafting"; seedling fruit "called natural or seedling fruit in distinction from grafted fruit". Cider apple: such fruit fed to stock and made into cider, "often called cider apples" (pp. 7-8).
  27. Somatic Mutations in Fruit Trees: Causes, Detection Methods, and Molecular Mechanisms, Seunghyun Ban and Je Hyeong Jung, Plants 12(6): 1316; PubMed Central, 14 March 2023. Supports: Sport: bud sports, mutations "in a single bud or shoot", "remain stable during vegetative propagation"; "At least 38 bud-sport mutations from 'Gala'" since its release in 1965, 91 from 'Fuji'; spur mutants of 'Red Delicious'. Clone: "genetically identical plants are produced from a single parent plant" by rooting, cuttings or grafting. Cross: "the crossing of two genetically different plants to produce offspring with new genetic combinations". Spur: the same.
  28. Malus x domestica, Genome Database for Rosaceae (GDR). Supports: Clone and grafting: cultivars "propagated by grafting scions onto dedicated rootstocks". Cross-pollination and self-fertile: "Domesticated apple is a self-incompatible tree". Diploid: "Most domesticated apple cultivars are diploid (n=17), although triploid and tetraploid cultivars are also documented".
  29. Making Sense of New Apple Varieties, Trademarks and Clubs: Current Status, S. K. Brown and K. E. Maloney, New York Fruit Quarterly 17(3): 9-12, Fall 2009. Supports: Club variety: varieties "patented and trademarked" and grown and marketed in a club "with access to grow the variety limited to club members"; "well over 30 club varieties, with the majority being grown outside of the US"; success depends on the variety and "the marketing efforts of the club"; "club, or managed varieties"; examples of exclusive rights with limited acreage, or quality standards to qualify for a brand. Variety denomination: trademark names are not variety names; some varieties "marketed under several different names depending on the marketer or region".
  30. codling, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Codlin: "any of several varieties of long tapering apples used for cooking"; "any unripe apple"; from a 15th-century querdlyng, "of uncertain origin"; Webster's New World: from Anglo-French querdelyon, "heart of lion".
  31. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: English Codlin, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Codlin: the English Codlin "one of our oldest English apples"; "Codlins and cream", once a national dish; "The name is derived from coddle, to parboil" (pp. 72-73).
  32. Controlled Atmosphere Storage, Northwest Horticultural Council, updated 6 February 2023. Supports: Controlled-atmosphere storage: "careful control of temperature, humidity, oxygen, and carbon dioxide"; oxygen reduced from "approximately 21 percent to as low as one percent, depending on apple variety"; less oxygen slows respiration and ripening; "many varieties of apple can store for 12 months or longer in CA".
  33. Controlled atmosphere storage of Queensland grown Granny Smith apples, C. D. Stevenson, J. B. Watkins and J. R. Blake, Queensland Journal of Agricultural Science 18(4): 463-475; Queensland Government eResearch Archive, 1961. Supports: Controlled-atmosphere storage: Kidd and West showed that "the refrigerated storage life of certain varieties of English grown apples could be appreciably extended" in atmospheres with less oxygen and more carbon dioxide; "gas, or controlled atmosphere, storage".
  34. Apples: choosing cultivars, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Cooking apple and dessert apple: most cultivars "either dessert or culinary, although some are dual-purpose"; "Many culinary apples become sweeter on storage", for dessert use from late winter. Dual-purpose apple: "seldom excellent for either use". Family tree: "three cultivars grafted onto one tree", for want of space; "the most vigorous taking over unless careful pruning is practised".
  35. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Contents, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Cooking apple: lists of "The Best Dessert", "The Best Kitchen" and "The Best Cider" apples (p. ix).
  36. Rootstocks for fruit, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Rootstock: rootstocks "control the ultimate height of the tree" and can add to disease resistance. Dwarfing rootstock: M27 extremely dwarfing (bush 1.2-1.8 m), M9 dwarfing, M26 dwarfing, MM106 semi-dwarfing, MM111 vigorous, M25 very vigorous. Cordon: "restricted by pruning to usually one main stem, either upright or at a 45 degree angle, with short fruiting side-shoots (spurs)". Espalier: "trained flat against a wall or fence".
  37. Apples and pears: identifying fruit buds, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Spur: spurs are "short, branched shoots"; most apple cultivars spur-bearing. Tip bearer: fruit buds "at the tips of long shoots produced the previous year"; Irish Peach and Cornish Gilliflower tip-bearers, "relatively uncommon"; Bramley's Seedling, Discovery and Worcester Pearmain partial tip-bearers; shortening shoot tips reduces their yield, so they are "best avoided" for cordons and espaliers. Cordon, espalier: the same. Pearmain: Worcester Pearmain.
  38. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Classification of Apples (the stamens, the tube, the carpels and the eye), Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Core: the carpels "constitute what is popularly called the core of the apple"; "generally five, occasionally ... four"; axile and abaxile cells. Eye: the calycine segments, "what is technically called the eye", "a portion of the remains of the flower" (pp. xii-xiii).
  39. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Costard, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Costard: "one of our oldest English apples"; "Poma Costard" in the fruiterers' bills of Edward the First, "in 1292", "sold for a shilling a hundred"; its sellers called Costardmongers, "now transformed into Costermongers"; Dr Johnson's derivation from "Cost, a head"; Hogg's from Costatus, ribbed (pp. 51-52).
  40. costard, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Costard: an English apple, "the large ribbed apple of this tree"; humorous archaic slang for the head; from Old French coste, rib.
  41. crab apple, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Crab apple: "any of various wild or cultivated trees (genus Malus) that are cultivars or relatives of the cultivated apple and that produce small sour fruit", also the fruit.
  42. Home Fruit Production: Apples (G6021), Michele Warmund, University of Missouri Extension; reviewed March 2026 by Juan Cabrera-Garcia, September 2017. Supports: Crab apple: "a crabapple tree may be used to pollinate an apple tree". Spur: a spur-type cultivar has "a compact growth habit"; spur types are "nonvigorous" and should not be used on a very dwarfing rootstock such as M.9.
  43. Pedigree reconstruction for triploid apple cultivars using single nucleotide polymorphism array data, Nicholas P. Howard and others, Plants, People, Planet 5(1): 98-111; abstract at Experts@Minnesota, January 2023. Supports: Triploid: "three copies of each chromosome instead of the more typical two"; triploids "tend to be stronger growing, more robust, and bear larger fruit", with "strongly reduced fertility"; unreduced-gamete parents identified for over half of 219 triploids. Cross: "All tested pedigrees from literature that listed triploids as parents of diploids were deemed false"; second parent of Cox's Orange Pippin identified as Rosemary Russet.
  44. cultivar, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Cultivar: a variety "originating and persistent under cultivation"; from cultivated + variety; first known use 1923.
  45. dessert apple, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Dessert apple: "an eating apple; an apple that can be eaten raw".
  46. diploid, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Diploid: "having or involving two sets of homologous chromosomes".
  47. The Apple Genome: A Delicious Promise, Kenong Xu, New York Fruit Quarterly 18(4), Winter 2010. Supports: Diploid: "Apple is a diploid species (2n = 2x = 34)", a cell having 34 chromosomes. Tetraploid: the monoploid set of 17 chromosomes.
  48. Paradise Rooted In War, Apples and People (Brightspace Foundation, Museum of Cider and National Trust in Herefordshire), 5 September 2021. Supports: Dwarfing rootstock: growers prefer dwarf trees for "denser planting" and easier picking. Malling series: East Malling Research Station "established in Kent in 1913"; Ronald Hatton collected Paradise rootstocks from the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany and classified them by the trees they produced; "the first nine types ... were published on 5 September 1917", the M-series; Jaune de Metz "a chance seedling originally found near Metz and recorded in 1879", renamed M9, "the most used rootstock worldwide"; extended to 27 types "not numbered in order of size"; an MM-series bred against woolly apple aphid. Paradise: "used for at least 500 years to describe small apple trees", from a Persian word for an enclosed garden; the Paradise stocks "became confused". Rootstock: propagation by layering.
  49. Apples and pears: espalier pruning and training, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Espalier: "a central stem and several tiers of horizontal branches"; "typically have three or four tiers, and reach about 1.8m (6ft) tall". Maiden: "a one-year-old single-stemmed tree known as a maiden or whip"; feathered and unfeathered maidens.
  50. espalier, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Espalier: French, ultimately from Italian spalla, shoulder; first known use 1662.
  51. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Classification of Apples (the eye and the colour of the skin), Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Ground colour and russet: fruit classed as "pale" (uniformly yellow or green), "striped" (distinct red stripes on the ground colour), "coloured" (wholly or partially a decided red) or russet, "in which a russet coat prevails". Eye: segments divergent, erect convergent, flat convergent or connivent (p. xvi).
  52. Fireblight, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Fireblight: a bacterial disease (Erwinia amylovora) that "kills the shoots of apples, pears and related ornamentals", leaving them looking "scorched by fire"; the bacterium native to North America, "accidentally introduced into the UK in 1957"; infection "usually via the blossoms".
  53. The Geneva® USDA/Cornell Apple Rootstock Breeding Program, USDA Agricultural Research Service. Supports: G series: the programme "initiated in 1968 by Dr. James Cummins and Dr. Herb Aldwinckle" at Cornell University, against the fire blight and crown rot (Phytophthora) of eastern North America; trials at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York; a joint programme with the USDA from 1998; releases G.16, G.202, G.41 and G.935; G.202 resistant to woolly apple aphid. Fireblight: M.9 and M.26 "extremely susceptible", with tree loss "caused by the rootstock phase of fire blight".
  54. pome, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Flesh and pome: "the fleshy fruit of the apple and related plants, consisting of an enlarged receptacle enclosing the ovary and seeds"; "the edible flesh arises from the greatly swollen receptacle and not from the carpels"; the fruit of the apple, pear or quince; from Old French, from Latin pomum, apple.
  55. Malus, Julian Sutton and Nick Dunn, Trees and Shrubs Online, 2021. Supports: Malus: Rosaceae; "a genus of very approximately 30 species, native to Asia, Europe and North America"; carpels fused and "fully enclosed by the hypanthium", "1–2 ovules (and hence seeds) per locule". Flesh: the hypanthium, the "floral cup". Pome: "Fleshy fruit with leathery core". Variety: the botanical rank, varietas.
  56. graft, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Grafting: from Anglo-French greffe, graife, stylus, through Medieval Latin and Latin, from Greek grapheion.
  57. heirloom, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Heritage variety: heirloom, "a variety of plant that has originated under cultivation and that has survived for several generations usually due to the efforts of private individuals".
  58. How to grow apples, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Heritage variety: "Local and heritage varieties are an increasingly popular choice", while "modern varieties are often more resistant to disease".
  59. June drop, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: June drop: fruit shedding after flowering; "just 1 in 20 flowers setting fruit can constitute a full crop"; peak "about eight weeks after flowering in early July", continuing to mid-July. Thinning: done after the June drop.
  60. keeper, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Keeper: "a fruit or vegetable that keeps well".
  61. American Pomology: Apples, classification by season, John A. Warder, Orange Judd and Company, New York; Internet Archive, 1867. Supports: Keeper and winter apple: apples divided by ripening "as the Summer, Autumn, and Winter fruits, to which some of us would desire to add Spring, or long-keepers".
  62. Keeving and Natural Conditioning of Cider, Andrew Lea, a talk based on a workshop at Franklin County Cider Day, November 2005 (cider.org.uk). Supports: Keeving: "The spontaneous (or directed) enzymic clarification of apple (or pear) juice before wild yeast fermentation"; pectin and calcium form a gel that rises and takes much of the yeast and its nutrients; fermentation can stop with the cider sweet; "Now finds its only widespread commercial application in France"; sweet sparkling cider "(Normandy style)".
  63. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Pippin, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Pippin: from the French Pepin, "the seed of an apple"; first meaning "an apple tree raised from seed in contradistinction to one raised by grafting"; the Golden Pippin "means simply Golden Seedling". Kernel: "the English equivalent of Pepin", used for a seedling, as in Ashmead's Kernel, "the seedling raised by Dr. Ashmead, of Gloucester".
  64. lenticel, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Lenticel: cells penetrating the surface of a stem "through which gases are exchanged between the atmosphere and the underlying tissues"; from New Latin lenticella, diminutive of Latin lens, lentil.
  65. Understanding and Preventing Lenticel Breakdown in Apples: from Tree to Storage, Isabella Lora and Macarena Farcuh, University of Maryland Extension, updated 6 June 2025. Supports: Lenticel: "small lens-shaped natural openings in the cuticle of apples"; lenticel breakdown a disorder of the skin around them.
  66. Lenticel, Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia, plant glossary. Supports: Lenticel: on apples they "look like tiny flecks or dots".
  67. malic acid, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Malic acid: found in various fruits such as apples; from French acide malique, ultimately from Latin malum, apple.
  68. East Malling's history, NIAB. Supports: Malling series: the East Malling and Wye Fruit Experimental Station "established on the East Malling site in 1913"; R. G. Hatton in charge from 1914; rootstocks among its most widely adopted developments.
  69. Rootstocks for Apples, Mira Bulatovic-Danilovich, West Virginia University Extension (last reviewed December 2023). Supports: Malling series and Paradise: East Malling collected the "Paradise" and "Doucin" rootstocks and confirmed their identity, replacing the confusing common names with numbers; the John Innes Institute at Merton collaborated, its hybrids given the prefix MM, "Malling-Merton".
  70. Malus domestica, Julian Sutton and Nick Dunn, Trees and Shrubs Online, 2021. Supports: Malus: the origin of M. domestica "begins with wild M. sieversii in Central Asia"; hybridised "on a rather large scale" with other wild apples, "M. sylvestris is particularly important". Seedling: "planting an apple seed will result in a tree that may express any of a variety of characteristics".
  71. Malus, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Malus: New Latin, from Latin, "apple tree".
  72. nonpareil, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Nonpareil: "having no equal"; from Middle French nompareil.
  73. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Nonpareil, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Nonpareil: skin "yellowish green, covered with large patches of thin grey russet"; "One of the most highly esteemed and popular of all our dessert apples"; "generally allowed" to be from France; Switzer's tradition that it was "first brought out of France and planted by a Jesuit in Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth's time". Paradise: "succeeds well on the paradise stock", and in pots on "the pomme paradis of the French".
  74. Flowering times of apples: RHS Pollination Groups, Royal Horticultural Society (PDF). Supports: Pollination group: grow two or more cultivars "from the same Flowering Group or adjacent Flowering Groups"; groups 1 ("Very early") to 7. Triploid: triploids "have sterile pollen and need two other cultivars"; Bramley's Seedling, Ribston Pippin and Blenheim Orange marked triploid. Pippin, nonpareil and russet: Cox's Orange Pippin, Ribston Pippin, Ross Nonpareil and Egremont Russet listed.
  75. orchard, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Orchard: "a planting of fruit trees, nut trees, or sugar maples"; from Old English ortgeard, from ort- (from Latin hortus, garden) and geard, yard.
  76. pearmain, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Pearmain: "any of several varieties of apple having a red skin"; from Old French permain, a type of pear, "perhaps from Latin Parmēnsis of Parma"; Webster's New World: associated "by folk etym. with Parma" but probably from Old French parmaindre, to remain, "from its long-keeping qualities".
  77. pip, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Pip: "a small fruit seed", short for pippin; first known use 1773.
  78. pippin, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Pippin: "any of several varieties of eating apple with a rounded oblate shape".
  79. pippin, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Pippin: "a crisp tart apple ... used especially for cooking".
  80. pomace, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Pomace: "the pulpy residue of apples or similar fruit after crushing and pressing, as in cider-making"; from Medieval Latin pomacium, cider, from Latin pomum, apple.
  81. pomology, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Pomology: "the science and practice of growing fruit"; New Latin, from Latin pomum, fruit; first known use 1818.
  82. Pomona, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Pomona: "the Roman goddess of fruit trees".
  83. Pomona Herefordiensis, Thomas Andrew Knight, Agricultural Society of Herefordshire; Internet Archive, 1811. Supports: Pomona: a book of "coloured engravings of the old cider and perry fruits of Herefordshire", 1811.
  84. The Herefordshire Pomona, Robert Hogg and Henry Graves Bull, Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club; Internet Archive, 1876-1885. Supports: Pomona: a book of "coloured figures and descriptions of the most esteemed kinds of apples and pears", published in parts (the catalogue gives 1876-1885, and parts 1878-1884).
  85. reinette, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Reinette: "the name for numerous varieties of apples, usually from France".
  86. The Fruit Manual, fifth edition: Reinette, Robert Hogg, Journal of Horticulture Office, London; Internet Archive, 1884. Supports: Reinette: readings as "Little Queen" and from "Rainette, a kind of frog", for the russet freckles; Hogg's own derivation from Renatus, "renewed or reproduced", a Reinette being "a grafted apple".
  87. stock, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Rootstock and stock: "a plant or plant part united with a scion in grafting and supplying mostly underground parts to a graft".
  88. russet, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Russet: "any of various apples having rough russet-colored skins"; from Anglo-French, from Latin russus, red.
  89. russet, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Russet: "any of various apples with rough brownish-red skins"; "abnormal roughness on fruit, caused by parasites, pesticides, or frost".
  90. Apple and pear scab, Royal Horticultural Society. Supports: Scab: caused by Venturia inaequalis; dark, scabby marks on fruit and leaves; airborne spores; survives the winter on fallen leaves; light attacks only blemish the skin, but cracked fruit is prone to rots and "will not store well".
  91. Apple Autotetraploids—Phenotypic Characterisation and Response to Drought Stress, Danuta Wójcik and others, Agronomy 12(1): 161; MDPI, 10 January 2022. Supports: Tetraploid: tetraploids "maintained in genetic resources mainly for crossing with diploids to obtain triploid genotypes"; autotetraploid clones of apple cultivars obtained in vitro. Triploid: "Apple triploids account for about 10% of all currently grown apple cultivars". Scab: "the most destructive" of the fungal diseases of apple.
  92. scion, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Scion: a bud or shoot "joined to a stock in grafting and usually supplying solely aerial parts to a graft"; from Anglo-French cioun, related to Old French cion, "offspring, new growth of a plant".
  93. scrumpy, Collins English Dictionary. Supports: Scrumpy: "a rough dry cider, brewed esp in the West Country in England"; from scrump, "(in obsolete sense: withered), referring to the apples used".
  94. seedling, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Seedling: "a young plant grown from seed".
  95. sport, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Sport: "an individual exhibiting a sudden deviation from type beyond the normal limits of individual variation usually as a result of mutation especially of somatic tissue".
  96. The Apples of New York, volume I: bud sports, S. A. Beach, New York Agricultural Experiment Station; Internet Archive, 1905. Supports: Sport: bud sports "appear suddenly" and "usually show permanent characters when propagated, entitling the sport to be called a new variety" (pp. 21-22).
  97. Apple Top-Working: Managing the New Grafts, Penn State Extension, updated 22 January 2026. Supports: Top-working: "grafting established trees onto another variety"; the stock cut back, "leaving just one or two limbs (nurse limbs)"; scions of the new variety grafted into the cut surface. Stock: "The existing tree, the 'stock,'".
  98. tetraploid, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Tetraploid: "a chromosome number four times the monoploid number".
  99. triploid, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Triploid: "a chromosome number three times the monoploid number".
  100. Explanatory Notes on Variety Denominations under the UPOV Convention (UPOV/EXN/DEN/4), International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), 25 October 2024. Supports: Variety denomination: registered "at the same time as the breeder's right is granted"; "its generic designation"; must "enable the variety to be identified" and not mislead; free use "even after the expiration of the breeder's right"; a trademark may be associated, but "the denomination must nevertheless be easily recognizable". Variety: the 1991 Act's definition, a grouping "considered as a unit with regard to its suitability for being propagated unchanged".
  101. wassail, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Wassail: "an early English toast to someone's health"; a hot drink of wine, beer or cider, spices and sugar, served "especially at Christmastime"; from Old Norse ves heill, "be well".
  102. Wassailing: ritual and revelry, Sally-Anne Huxtable, National Trust. Supports: Wassail: a Twelfth Night tradition; a visit to an orchard "for singing, dancing, drinking and general merrymaking", with a "hullabaloo"; meant "to ward off bad spirits from the orchards whilst also pleasing the spirits of the fruit trees, to ensure a bountiful crop"; "Slices of toast soaked in cider are tied to the branches" (Saddlecombe Farm); the word from Old English "was hál", "be hale".
  103. winter apple, Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Supports: Winter apple: "a late-ripening apple that keeps well in winter".