The World of Apples

Wild apples

Malus daochengensis C.L.Li

Description

Malus daochengensis is a tree of 5 to 7 m whose young shoots are densely felted with greyish-white hairs. Its leaves are elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, 4–9.5 cm long, with blunt teeth. The flowers are 3.5–4 cm across, with white or pinkish-white petals, on felted stalks 3.5–4 cm long. The fruit is yellowish red, pear-shaped and 1–1.5 cm across, and the sepals fall from it. It flowers in June and fruits in August1.

Range and habitat

It grows in thickets and at the margins of fields at about 2,800 m in western Sichuan and north-western Yunnan1,2. Plants of the World Online reports a 2024 prediction, from a study of extinction risk across the world’s flowering plants, that it is threatened2.

History

C. L. Li published the name in 19891,2. A 2022 revision of the genus left the species out because its position was unclear without DNA sequence data3.

Where the sources disagree

  • One species or two. Plants of the World Online treats Malus xiaojinensis as a synonym of Malus daochengensis2. The 2022 revision accepts it as a separate species, published in 1983 from trees at Xiaojin in Sichuan: a tree of 8–12 m with white flowers and yellow fruit 1–1.3 cm across, growing at forest edges, on river banks and in gullies at 2,600–3,000 m3.

Sources

  1. Malus daochengensis, Flora of China vol. 9, Gu Cuizhi and Stephen A. Spongberg, Flora of China, eFloras.org, 2003. Supports: the description (trees 5–7 m, branchlets densely greyish-white tomentose when young, leaves elliptic or elliptic-lanceolate, 4–9.5 cm, obtusely serrate, pedicels 3.5–4 cm, flowers 3.5–4 cm, petals white or pinkish white, pome yellowish red, pear-shaped, 1–1.5 cm, sepals falling, flowering June and fruiting August); thickets and field margins at about 2,800 m in W Sichuan and NW Yunnan; published by C. L. Li in 1989.
  2. Malus daochengensis C.L.Li, Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Supports: accepted name and authority, published 1989; native range "China (W. Sichuan, NW. Yunnan)"; Malus xiaojinensis, Sinomalus daochengensis and Malus baccata var. daochengensis among the synonyms; a predicted extinction risk of "threatened" from Bachman and colleagues, "Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation" (2024).
  3. A revision of the genus Malus Mill. (Rosaceae), Jing-chao Li, Jian-quan Liu and Xin-fen Gao, European Journal of Taxonomy 853: 1–127, 2022. Supports: the position of M. daochengensis still unclear because DNA sequence data are lacking, so it was left out of the revision; M. xiaojinensis accepted as a species, published in 1983 (tree 8–12 m, leaves 3.7–7.5 cm, 3–5-lobed on saplings and the lower branches of mature trees, white petals, yellow fruit 1–1.3 cm, forest edges, river banks and gullies at 2,600–3,000 m in Sichuan; type collected at Xiaojin in 1981).