The World of Apples

Wild apples

Malus angustifolia (Aiton) Michx.

Southern crabapple; Narrow-leaved crabapple

Description

Malus angustifolia is a small tree or shrub, usually 1 to 5 m tall and occasionally 10 m, whose side shoots become short spurs or spiny thorns. The leaves of flowering shoots are elliptic or oblong and 1.5–5 cm long, with scalloped or plain margins. The pink flowers, 2–3 cm across and sometimes fading to white, have pink anthers and a pleasant scent like violets. The fruit is green or yellow-green, round and 1–2 cm across, occasionally 3 cm, with abundant stone cells around the core1. Its narrower leaves, tapered at the base, distinguish it from the American and prairie crab apples, and in mild places and seasons it keeps some leaves through the winter3.

In its native range it flowers from March to May, sometimes from February, and its fruit ripens in August and September1.

Range and habitat

The southern crab apple grows in the south-east of the United States, north to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois and south to Florida and Louisiana1,4. It grows in open woods and thickets, on hillsides, river and lake banks and flood plains, along roadsides and in open fields, on sandy or clay soils from 10 to 700 m1. The IUCN Red List assessed it in 2018 as Least Concern, with a stable population5.

Uses

The fruit is still sometimes made into jelly, as it was by the Cherokee. The tree was in British gardens by 1750, was lost there and was reintroduced about 1900; in the United States it is valued in the south for its tolerance of heat. Like the American crab apple, it is very susceptible to cedar-apple rust3.

Relationship to the cultivated apple

The eastern North American apples form a group of their own, section Chloromeles, distinguished from other apples by features of the flower and fruit2. In a genome study of 2017 the four North American species, this one among them, came out closest to the pear, outside the group formed by the cultivated apple and its wild progenitors6.

Where the sources disagree

  • One species or three. The Flora of North America keeps the southern, American and prairie crab apples as three species, but notes that variation between them is continuous and that preliminary genetic studies suggest a single species, Malus coronaria2. Trees and Shrubs Online describes the southern crab apple as intergrading with M. coronaria3.
  • Ohio. The Flora of North America includes Ohio in its range1; Plants of the World Online marks it as absent there4.

Sources

  1. Malus angustifolia, Flora of North America vol. 9, Elizabeth E. Dickson, Flora of North America, eFloras.org. Supports: the description (trees or shrubs 1–5(–10) m, spur shoots or spiny thorns, flowers 20–30 mm, pink, anthers pink, pome green or yellow-green 10–20(–30) mm with abundant stone cells, 2n = 34 (68)); flowering (February–)March–May and fruiting August–September; habitats and elevation 10–700 m; the states, including Ohio; the violet-like scent; the common names southern and narrow-leaved crabapple.
  2. Malus Mill., Flora of North America vol. 9, Elizabeth E. Dickson, Flora of North America, eFloras.org. Supports: eastern North American apples forming sect. Chloromeles, with continuous variation blurring species boundaries; preliminary genetic studies suggesting a single species, M. coronaria; three morphological extremes kept as species.
  3. Malus angustifolia, Julian Sutton and Nick Dunn, Trees and Shrubs Online (International Dendrology Society), 2021. Supports: semi-evergreen in mild areas and seasons; narrower leaves tapered at the base, distinguishing it from M. coronaria and M. ioensis; intergradation with M. coronaria; apparently diploid and sexual; fruit used for jelly, as by the Cherokee; in British cultivation by 1750, lost and reintroduced about 1900; heat tolerance; very susceptible to cedar-apple rust.
  4. Malus angustifolia (Aiton) Michx., Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Supports: accepted name and authority; native range in the central and eastern United States (the states listed), with Ohio marked absent.
  5. Malus angustifolia, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2020: e.T64134490A152906529, IUCN SSC Global Tree Specialist Group and Botanic Gardens Conservation International, 2020. Supports: Least Concern, assessed 12 June 2018; population stable.
  6. Genome re-sequencing reveals the history of apple and supports a two-stage model for fruit enlargement, Naibin Duan and others, Nature Communications 8: 249, 2017. Supports: the North American species, M. angustifolia among them, placed closest to pear, outside the clade of the cultivated apple and its progenitors, in the phylogenetic tree; M. angustifolia among the species with a homogeneous genetic background.